Is cyanobacteria always smelly?

[Sara]

I was visiting a friend today and saw that her tank is absolutely covered in algae. I just finished poking around in the forums and noticed that the algae she had looks a lot like cyanobacteria. It was almost like felt in appearance and covered the glass and much of the decor (but not the sand).

I told her all about how to get rid of her algae, but I just want to make sure that it's not cyano. From what I've read, cyano is *always* smelly...is this true? Her tank smelled like any normal tank would, so it's probably just normal algae...but I thought I'd check just in case.

So? Is cyano always smelly?

TIA!

 

[BrianNY]

When I had a bout of cyano I didn't notice any smell.

 

[Billsgate]

Oooh, my cyano sure smells. Did you touch it Sara? As long as you don't touch it, you won't smell anything odd about your tank, but once you start taking it out the whole room smells. I don't mind the smell too much, but other people do

But normally cyano isn't really felt like to the touch, not in my case, it's a bit slimy. Maybe it is to the eye though.

http://mikes-machine.mine.nu/algae_gallery.htm#Cyanobacterium_1

 

[Sara]

Hmm...we brushed (well, scrubbed) a little bit off and there was no smell.

Guess we'll need to do some more detective work. Thanks for the replies!

 

[An t-iasg]

When I had cyano in my two 5 gallon betta tanks, they smelled the room up too. I opened the lid and thought I was going to pass out. It was such an awful smell that I used the erythromycin because I really needed that smell to go away. 8O

I have had hair algae before. It looks like green spiderwebs and can stick to the side of the glass and float off the plants. This type of algae didn't have a smell. I think it appeared because my tank was in sunlight for 2 hours a day. Since it was from 3-5 pm, I didn't think the sun would be strong enough at that time of day to cause any harm. But all of a sudden I had all that hair algae. It was easy to clean off and when I moved the tank, it didn't come back.

 

[Toirtis]

Cyano does smell, but particularly so when exposed to air.

 

[malkore]

Keep in mind there are hundreds, if not thousands of species of cyanobacteria. its entirely possible that some of them have little to no odor.

Low current, and lack of nitrates will create favorable conditions for Cyano.