Brown eggs floating all throughout my tank?

[Duff485]

Hey guys,

Was sitting watching TV and happened to glance at my tank. It looked like a sand storm so I checked it out closer. It was 100's of little eggs. They are brown and about the same size as the small pellet formula 1 food if that helps. There was a clump floating around too, but it was breaking up and is now gone. The eggs are still floating around and the tank is all cloudy now.

I've got two clowns, snails, hermits, one pistol shrimp, one watchman goby, and one 4-line wrasse. any ideas on what this could be, and if I should be doing anything?

 

[Duff485]

My skimmer is also going nuts

 

[Duff485]

Tried to get a pic

 

[Duff485]

I took a slick picture, phone camera THROUGH my 10x magnification eye piece. Hope this helps.

 

[Turbosnail]

What do you have for corals?

 

[Duff485]

Palys, zoos, mushrooms, ric, finger leather.

Also have two rbta's

 

[JohnK]

That looks like a female BTA spawning. I had it happen once yrs ago and the description and pics match exactly. Look closely at your nems, when mine spawned I was able to see the little eggs inside the tentacles and body of the nem (but I had to look pretty closely to see them)

 

[Duff485]

Just did a water change this morning as well. Made up a new batch of water a few minutes ago, but its too cold and won't be ready until tomorrow probably. (cold in the basement)

The tank smells kinda bad now too, almost like the beach when the tide is receding. Skimmer is pulling some slimy opaque junk, emptied two cups already in an hour, but was mostly just water because the skimmer is going nuts from whatever the eggs put on the water

 

[Duff485]

John that's crazy! I can't see the nems right now due to the cloudy water, but I'll keep an eye out.

Interestingly enough, one of my nems has been kinda hiding in HER ( ) cave. Typically she is out basking in the light, but she has been hiding for the last day our two.

Do I need to worry about the water quality? Or will it just clear up eventually? Thanks for the help!

 

[JohnK]

I don't remember my tank clouding up, but then again that was 9 or 10 yrs ago so I could have forgotten.

I'd say if your tank is cloudy and smells then I would run a LOT of carbon and probably prepare water for a large water change ASAP. Might not be absoultely necessary to do either, but I'd want to err on the side of caution.

 

[Duff485]

Normally don't run carbon, but as soon as I saw this mess I put some in. just doubled the carbon too so hopefully that will be enough.

Got 10 gallons mixing as we speak. I kinda panicked at first and started making water right away. Let's hope its ok til the morning! Water is too cold to change right now

 

[uhupong]

interesting thread, now i wanna know what those eggs are.



EpicTouch 4G

 

[SteveDola]

Id run a filter sock and get them outta the water column

 

[JohnK]

Are the eggs still floating around or have they more or less disappeared? How's the tank look and smell now?

IIRC when my RBTA spawned the eggs more or less disintegrated pretty quickly, lasting only a day or two. I've heard of others seeing the same thing happen, but I don't recall hearing of any terrible consequences.

 

[Duff485]

Some updates:

Did a water change this morning. Ended up being roughly 50%. That helped significantly with the smell and clarity. Its still a little cloudy but its definitely getting better. I still have a bunch of carbon running.

I looked up some info on a female rbta spawning and its definitely what happened. John, the eggs are basically gone, just like you mentioned. All in all, everything looks fine, but my 4 line wrasse is not so hot. My goby looks completely fine, my clowns look fine (and they ate a lot of eggs), but the wrasse is swimming a little and then sitting in the sand for extended periods of time. He looks stressed, but hopefully he will pull through. Corals are all ok too. My skimmer is running normal now which is a good sign.

 

[JohnK]

Gee, it just dawned on me.. Are both of your RBTAs splits from the same original, or are they from two different sources?

I ask because if they are not splits of each other, you may have a male and a female going through a full spawning event, maybe??? That would explain the eggs AND clowdy water.

 

[Duff485]

I think the reason I had issues right away was due to the amount of water in my tank... 29 gallon sump-less. The milky/cloudy water was pretty bad.

 

[Duff485]

They are all splits sadly. All females! I was reading on some other forums that when the female releases eggs, they also have some milky substance too.

 

[JohnK]

Huh? Mine just released eggs only. Maybe yours are hermaphrodites?

 

[Duff485]

Hah, could be! I kinda hope so and maybe little nems will show up. Cash cow!