My water in my tank is smelling fishy
- Thread starter kengaroo
- Start date
rustyj
Member
Originally Posted by dmjordan
increase water changes... what are your water parameters (ammonia, trite, trate, phosphate)
DM is right, your water should smell fresh and salty not like bad fish. Do you use a skimmer? If not they are really worth while. I have a 55gal on a 5in live sand substrate with a protien skimmer and no other filters and it does very well. But you should see if any larger fish are missing or coral or anenome is diing if you have them and do a major water change, maybe 50% now and follow the 10% per week water change recomended by DM, by the way if you are not forcing the water through the carbon filled bags it they won't do any good.
increase water changes... what are your water parameters (ammonia, trite, trate, phosphate)
DM is right, your water should smell fresh and salty not like bad fish. Do you use a skimmer? If not they are really worth while. I have a 55gal on a 5in live sand substrate with a protien skimmer and no other filters and it does very well. But you should see if any larger fish are missing or coral or anenome is diing if you have them and do a major water change, maybe 50% now and follow the 10% per week water change recomended by DM, by the way if you are not forcing the water through the carbon filled bags it they won't do any good.
rustyj
Member
Originally Posted by kengaroo
I tested my water yesterday and it looks good. I have a 2 inch sand bed with 36lbs of rock in my 46 gallon tank.
I have a skimmer, but it does seem to work as effective as before. I rarely see bubbles going into cup.
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
PH 8
Nitrate 20
Sometimes I need to make adjustments to the water flow to my skimmer to keep it working properly. Yours sounds like it may not be working correctly and that will allow all those proteins to start to change into amonia and smell. Check it out and that should help from having it happen again but you still should do the water changes.
Not to disagree with everyone on this BUT about the LR, if you have an established sand bed you dont need 1pb per gallon of LR. I have a 135gal tank with two hang ons with NO BIOWHEELS about 2 in of sand and maybe 50lbs of LR and a skimmer. It is doing really well as is with about 10 fish and a few soft corals and some spaghetti algae. The 1lb per gallon is no longer the standard and if you go the the site marinecenter search for LR articles and you will see that they actually recomend only half that much and you benefit from the extra water in the tank not displaced by the rock.
I tested my water yesterday and it looks good. I have a 2 inch sand bed with 36lbs of rock in my 46 gallon tank.
I have a skimmer, but it does seem to work as effective as before. I rarely see bubbles going into cup.
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
PH 8
Nitrate 20
Sometimes I need to make adjustments to the water flow to my skimmer to keep it working properly. Yours sounds like it may not be working correctly and that will allow all those proteins to start to change into amonia and smell. Check it out and that should help from having it happen again but you still should do the water changes.
Not to disagree with everyone on this BUT about the LR, if you have an established sand bed you dont need 1pb per gallon of LR. I have a 135gal tank with two hang ons with NO BIOWHEELS about 2 in of sand and maybe 50lbs of LR and a skimmer. It is doing really well as is with about 10 fish and a few soft corals and some spaghetti algae. The 1lb per gallon is no longer the standard and if you go the the site marinecenter search for LR articles and you will see that they actually recomend only half that much and you benefit from the extra water in the tank not displaced by the rock.