Skimmers gone wild!

[parsonsaj]

Came in this morning to find the skimmer overflowed, and the sump full of foam. Quick check of the tank shows all fish present and accounted for, large inverts seem OK (at least the ones I can find), corals seem to be in their usual state before the lights come on.

The only thing I could find amiss in the tank is a single large dead snail. He had a hermit working on him, but the shell was surrounded by this funky cloudy looking gel, and there were wisps of the gel elsewhere in the tank. I got his remains out of the tank (the hermit was PO'd!) and fished the cloudy gunk out as best I could.

Got the skimmer skimming again (had to crank the level WAY down on my ASM G1 to keep it from overflowing) and put fresh carbon in. Will do a water change later today (am currently out of RODI water).

Question I have is, why did this (apparently) single snail death cause this much trouble? I know I have had snails die before without producing this much collateral damage!

 

[parsonsaj]

Nope, nothing new in the tank. Stuff like this used to happen back when I was running a Super Skimmer on my 65 gal tank, but this is the first time the ASM has ever gone nuts like this without the presence of some known catalyst (like epoxy or superglue).

 

[crew]

maybe you had something else die off?? or maybe it was just that big of a snail

 

[FutureInterest]

I've had plenty of snails croak without the skimmer overflowing but it seems like the only logical culprit... Perhaps its because they typically don't decay in my tank as they did in yours. Dead ones get eaten so fast no meat gets the chance to rot and screw up the skimmer.

 

[parsonsaj]

FutureInterest;277665 wrote: I've had plenty of snails croak without the skimmer overflowing but it seems like the only logical culprit... Perhaps its because they typically don't decay in my tank as they did in yours. Dead ones get eaten so fast no meat gets the chance to rot and screw up the skimmer.

Yep, that's been my experience, too. I've had plenty of others die off before (as witnessed by the copious number of empty shells I never seem to get around to gathering up out of the sand), and they have always been eaten up before they could turn really funky. When I discovered the situation, there was a solo hermit trying his best to eat this guy up, but I figured I better get him out of there ASAP.

I guess this will remain one of those mysteries of life...