Skimmer overflow incident questions

[IanWR]

Hi all,

I came home tonight to find my curve 7 skimmer overflowing like a fountain. I have 2 main questions:

1) What should be done when this happens? I turned off the skimmer, cleaned whatever glop I could find, changed filter socks, added a bag of carbon, did a 10% wc. Then I tuned the skimmer's air intake to wide open, turned it on and collected about a liter of water from the cup (it always goes nuts when I add new socks) until it calmed down. Everyone in the tank seems ok, corals have their polyps out so assume nothing catastrophic has happened. Did I miss some crucial step?

2) What can cause a skimmer to go out of sorts like this? My guesses would be something dieing (did a head count, everyone seems present and accounted for), something spawning (can't imagine what I have that might have done so, but maybe?), or just something random that happens now and then. Is there something I am doing and/or not doing that I can change to help this not happen again?

Thanks in advance!

- Ian