Coral spawning in tank? Or Reactor gone haywire? (1 Viewer)

[Kevin Lake]

So overnight, this tank turned cloudy! When I looked closely, I noticed that a Frogspawn was shooting stuff out - like what snails, urchins, or stars do when they spawn. I did note that yesterday, the Pencil urchin was spawning. There isn't hardly ANY algae, so I'm all but eliminating the possibility of algae going sexual. Only thing left are the corals, inverts and fish. So, is it possible for a coral spawning event to do this? (there's a handful of frog spawn, yellow pallys, some leathers and a lot of GSP). There was a very small (2") BTA that was missing today.

Only thing I did was the normal water change, carbon/GFO change and increased the light cycle by 30 minutes (to 8.5 hours). I double checked salinity, temp and light cycle (lights were not on all night). I did a 50% water change, changed the filter sock and everything otherwise looked fine.

>>> YESTERDAY <<<



<<< TODAY >>>

 

[Kevin Lake]

Oh, and I unplugged the carbon/GFO reactor because the sponge inside fell down... so maybe the carbon/GFO combination tumbled into dust and went into the tank?

 

[Travis Dragan]

Spawning doesnt usually induce those types of colors a day after, maybe a week or so without another water change or carbon or another way to remove it. I have seen a couple large spawning events and never had this type of impact a day later. I would guess more the gfo reactor to be the cause or at least a contributor.

 

[eschulist]

Ya that looks like gfo/carbon powder. Coral spawning in reef aquaria is extremely rare even by research institutions. They are also millions of tiny balls. Clam spawning would be more of a white milky fog consistency.

 

[cheezybuda]

Kevin, does it have a similar appearance to my frag tank?

That missing BTA is considered a suspect in this investigation...

 

[Kevin Lake]

Kevin, does it have a similar appearance to my frag tank?

It doesn't look like it.

Like people are saying and my suspicion, it sounds like a carbon/GFO reactor problem. That was the first thing I unplugged when I saw the tank the next morning.

 

[redlion4]

Our tank looks similar after the BTA spawns, releasing eggs and such. Happens 1-2x each year for our BTA, but is very white/milky in appearance. The photos posted here appears to have a red hue, perhaps from the GFO as theorized.

 

[Kevin Lake]

This morning the tank looked perfectly fine (can't say the same for the filter sock though!). The sponge inside the reactor got dislodged, allowing the carbon & GFO to tumble together (carbon shouldn't tumble since it's much softer - especially tumbling with the much harder GFO). I bet there isn't much in the way of phosphate