smoking live rock

[tylerperkins]

so last night before my lights shut off i was looking in my tank and out of nowhere one of my rocks had what looked to be smoke coming out of it. It was thick white "smoke" and took about a minute to go away. Couldn't get the phone quick enough to take a pic or vid....... any ideas????

 

[TheSwampFox]

I've seen this in rock too. I believe it is some sort of creature expelling waste, much like an anemone would.

 

[FLESHY]

How much? Who are the suspects? How quick did it settle out?

I have had corals, and shrimp breed in my tanks...and when they expell eggs it is pretty crazy.

 

[tylerperkins]

it was thick and white.... no livestock around that i could see....... it took about a min then just looked like fog around the area

 

[thebase#1]

I have the same thing in my tank, does it look gooey/slimey?

 

[thisissimple]

My bet is a crab or shrimp somewhere inside the rock. This is a classic description of a spawning event. watch your parameters, you may need to do a water change if you have a nutrient spike.

the last time I had a mithrax crab do this, my corals grew insanely that week.

 

[tylerperkins]

it looked more like a powder

 

[thisissimple]

thats what it looks like. smoke, powder, mist. With some species it looks like a thick cloud, and with others you can actually see eggs.

 

[FLESHY]

Well...where there are eggs, there is sperm.

The reason I could see eggs and yours looked like a mist might just be that difference there.

Brought 12 urchins into work for holding on a research project. The project is based on spawning them, but three of the males had already dumped gametes before I left today.