Smell of tank?

[Scouser]

Hey all!

Not sure if this is the right place but I was wondering if the smell I have from my tank is normal lol.

It's Tropical BTW.

Basically it smells like water that has gone a tad stagnant, just did a PWC and rinsed filter material in old tank water to clean out food specs etc. And washed the outside of the tank glass with Dettol wipes.

Anyways is this smell normal?

 

[Mrc8858]

Sounds about normal to me.. does it smell like when u walk into a petstore by there tanks... although if its in question u should do a full test on ur water ph ammo nitrITe and nitrAte.. better safe then sorry

 

[stingrays4]

Hi it should smell 'fresh' but it will smell more when you clean it out. If it smelled before you cleaned it out i would try and give the tank a good once over with a gravel syphon,trying to get out as much muck as possible,feed the fish a little less for a few days and get some carbon in there hope this helps

 

[Scouser]

I've done the test and levels are normal.

0s found Ammonia and trIte and under 20ppm for trAtes.

And yea that's about the same smell, just not used to it I guess being my first aquarium.

Thanks for the speedy response though

 

[Mrc8858]

I've done the test and levels are normal.

0s found Ammonia and trIte and under 20ppm for trAtes.

And yea that's about the same smell, just not used to it I guess being my first aquarium.

Thanks for the speedy response though

No problem that's wut we r here for.. AA is a great site and ya after cleaning the tank would have gotten a lil stirred up so the smell would be stronger then normal should be alright after a lil while and the water settles

 

[Scouser]

Hi it should smell 'fresh' but it will smell more when you clean it out. If it smelled before you cleaned it out i would try and give the tank a good once over with a gravel syphon,trying to get out as much muck as possible,feed the fish a little less for a few days and get some carbon in there hope this helps

Yea the smell arisen after a water change if I remember correctly lol.

Well I'm tempted to tear it apart and scrub it clean! (OCD)

But I'm gonna get a tank sponge this Friday and clean it that way, hopefully that'll help...

 

[Mrc8858]

Yea the smell arisen after a water change if I remember correctly lol.

Well I'm tempted to tear it apart and scrub it clean! (OCD)

But I'm gonna get a tank sponge this Friday and clean it that way, hopefully that'll help...

It's always good to clean ur tank but if u tear it down and scrub everything ull be eliminating ur bio filter so ud have to re cycle ur tank

 

[Mrc8858]

If its bothering u enough that u still wanna clean it up u could try wut I do when I feel my tank is below par and do a daily small water change just focusing on vacuuming different spots daily for about a week or so... should get ur tanks substrate pretty clean of any debris

 

[Scouser]

It's always good to clean ur tank but if u tear it down and scrub everything ull be eliminating ur bio filter so ud have to re cycle ur tank

There is always a downside to every choice related to aquariums I've noticed lol.

Anyways with the sponge I'll keep up maintenance.

Also can anyone suggest a way to introduce algae wafers with the mess after it collapses?

(my Betta "Fluffy" seems to enjoy them more than the Oto twins lol!)

 

[stingrays4]

Hi your welcome. Me got used to the smell I wouldn't 'over' clean the tank otherwise you would have to recycle the tank again

 

[Scouser]

Hi your welcome. Me got used to the smell I wouldn't 'over' clean the tank otherwise you would have to recycle the tank again

Well once the Oto have grown a tad more I'm gonna have dozens of circles on my tank glass so that'll be fun to see lol.

I'm just gonna continue with the weekly PWC and gravel vacuuming to remove gunk etc.

 

[steez]

Do you have any carbon in your filter? that can help with the smell I believe

 

[Scouser]

Do you have any carbon in your filter? that can help with the smell I believe

I think I have activated carbon sponge in my filter along with a bacterial beneficial one.

I washed the fine mess sponge that catches food gunk at the seems to have relieved the problem (was a brownish red from tannins :/)

 

[Ozydego]

I break the algae wafers in half for my fish, if it is still there after 2 hours, its too much, try breaking it in half and see if they eat all that, if not, keep going less... that stuff expands a lot once its in the tank...

 

[Scouser]

I break the algae wafers in half for my fish, if it is still there after 2 hours, its too much, try breaking it in half and see if they eat all that, if not, keep going less... that stuff expands a lot once its in the tank...

Well I dunno if I'm getting more Oto so now I have 2 unopened tubs of wafers lying round :/