Fishy smell in very new 2 1/2 gallon tanklet

[Wiegee]

I am a fairly experienced user (salt and African cichlids). While I have not kept a aquarium for years, I still remember the fundementals.

My 10-year old brought home twp small snails from a school project and wanted to keep them in an old 30 gallon tank of mine...I thought a 2 1/2 gallon setup was smarter and set it up last night. I added 3 larger snails, some anachris and another cooler plant as well as two upside-down cats. The water is filtered and aerated and I am monitoring the water temp before I add a heater.

By this morning the room had developed a decidedly fishy smell. The only reason that I can think of is that perhaps I should not have reused the gravel from a previous disasterous episode with this tank. As a much younger child, my kid thought feeding the fish was fun - so she fed and fed and fed the fish until it was a mess that no filtration could resolve.

I cleaned up this gravel before reusing it but perhaps new would have been better - any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated,

 

[iDream]

might be high ammonia due to not cycling before hand, do some water changes so your little guys dont die of ammonia poisoning, then read up on the nitrogen cycle.

hope all goes well!

 

[Wiegee]

Thanks, but is such a condition likely to occur in the first twelve hours with so few ammonia producers? I will swap out some water as you suggested, but again - I wonder if it is the preused gravel that created the issue.

 

[Wiegee]

Then again, maybe a more robust filtration system is indicated....

 

[iDream]

that would help, but if you washed out the gravel there shouldnt be a problem, especially if it dried out after you washed/rinsed it.

for a 2.5G tank 5 snails(not a contribution to the bioload much at all) and two upside down cats thats a lot of stuff for a tank that size. i'd put nothing more than a betta in a tank that size