Smelly tank?

[Starfrog32]

For the most part, our tank has not smelled bad until today. We've had pretty good luck with fish in our 2 months of work. We've only lost two fish, a goldfish due to pushing the tank heat up, and a danio, due to a cat and an isolating tank.

We had a total of 23 fish, 10 or so Zebra Danios, 4 Neon Tetras, 2 Plecos, 2 red or rose finned something, 2 ghost catfish, 1 green gourami, 1 angelfish, and a goldfish (No, I didn't put it in there). We have no live plants, but we do have 3 plastic plants and two statues.

We had our water tested yesterday, and were told that the water was ok, with just a little ammonia. We were advised to feed less (from twice a day to once every other) and to keep the light turned off (It was staying on 24/7)

So the changes that have been made from yesterday, were the water was fine, to today, which is stink city are:

1. We added 8 fish, which added our tank up to 23
2. We got bottle of BIO-SAFE tap water detoxifier and used some to treat 3qts of water which was added to the tank.
3. We went from 24 hours of light to 4.

We havn't cleaned the gravel yet, which is the next thing we're going to try.

Other then the gravel cleaning, does anyone have any advise to get rid of the smell?

 

[Guest]

What size tank?

What kind of filter?

If you can put some fresh carbon in your filter, that will likely help get rid of the smell.

 

[Starfrog32]

We have a 35 gallon, with a Millennium 2000 filter, which was changed about 4 days ago.

 

[magdelena_69]

how big were the fish you added? And are they messy eaters? That might spike the ammonia and cause the smell. Test the water again just to make sure.

 

[Starfrog32]

We did a vacuem cleaning and about a 50% water change and it really cleaned up the smell.

 

[ashesofyou]

was the 35 gallon the tank with the list of fish in your first posting? If so, you're very over stocked, and will have to be very faithful with water changes and tank maintinance. the "general rule" is (using the adult measurement, and if the fish is a thin bodied fish like a tetra) 1 inch of fish to gallon of water. If you're an experienced fish keeper, and are very familiar with your tanks etc. that "rule" can be bent to a certain extent... if you need links to this info, as well as profiles for your fish let me know... being new to this board though I hate to go tossing links everywhere though... lol! it would make me look like a spammer and I hate those

 

[Starfrog32]

Um...if I understand the 1 inch of fish per gallon, as almost half the fish are small (danios and tetras) we're still under our max fish. We, or rather I, just took out the goldfish, and we lost two tetras due to .... the gold fish. I'm always intrested in links, send on