Brown water

[Dearth]

Yesterday morning my water within the space of 2 hours went from clear to a very dirty brown to the point where I could not see into the tank I immediately went into full panic mode and did an immediate 40 gallon water change as soon as I did that I made another batch of SW and did another water change at which point the water Was opaque but cleaning up I made a third batch of SW and did another 40 gallon water change after lights out. The skimmer went into overdrive as well and I was emptying the cup every 40 minutes until around 11pm when I finally went to bed this morning skimmer is back to normal.

This morning water is clear again all fish, known inverts and all my corals are accounted for and seem to be doing quite well. With that being said red cyano is back with a passion and nitrates are quite high but not overly worried about either as I can deal with both however the dirty brown water concerns me.

Does anybody have an idea of what might of happened to turn the water dirty brown?

[coolhandgoose]

GFO? Mine turned brown when the gfo was tumbling too much and produced a ton of brown dust.

[Dearth]

I don't run any additives in my tank at all just skimmer and return pump in the sump

[GoFish]

Your aquarium is nothing but a smorgasbord "and litter box" for your cats?
or maybe something died or spawned?

[Dearth]

Originally Posted by GoFish

Your aquarium is nothing but a smorgasbord "and litter box" for your cats?
or maybe something died or spawned?

My cats have been well behaved as of late around the tank which makes me trust my cats even less now.....

As to something spawning I considered it but ruled it out and as far as I know nothing died which makes this even more perplexing as to why my water changed colour I am hoping this is a one time event because I don't this kind of stress anymore 😎😎😎

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

No idea. I had clams spawn in my display. 200g of stinky milky white water, thank you very much. Not brown. Maybe someone dropped in an open jar of Nescafe

[Myka]

I had something similar like this happen in a client's tank. Everything was a rusty brown - the skimmer was overflowing rusty brown foam, the filter pads were rusty brown, there was a dusting of it on the rocks. Couldn't see in the tank. It did this overnight. I stopped by, did a waterchange, blew the rocks off, cleaned the skimmer out, replaced the carbon, and replaced the filter pad. The next day it was cleared up. The only thing that makes any sense to me is bacteria. That's the only thing that really comes and goes that fast besides something spawning, but I don't know of anything that spawns rusty brown.