Rotten egg smell in canister.

terror

terror

AC Members
May 23, 1999
1,235
1
38
Manila, Philippines
Hi,

For some reason my canister stopped for a day.
not sure if its because of water change and the water level became too low.
Now i removed all the filter media , rinsed in tapwater.
Will it be safe to use the canister again? I will sun dry the media first, which contains crushed corals and some filter floss.

will sun drying get rid of hydrogen sulfide?

thanks.
 
you don't need to dry it out, a thorough rinse is enough to get rid of the nasties. the smell is from a buildup of anaerobic bacteria that grew while the canister was off, so once you hook it up again (as long as it doesn't stop) the "bad" bacteria won't come back.
 
Partly right chicken.
There is a large group of bacteria called facultative anaerobes. These bacteria have the ability to use oxygen for metabolism or if it is not present other elements like sulfur. There are quite a few strains of Nitrobacter species that have this ability. (these are the "good' bacteria that break down nitrite). She probably just had a lower level of oxygen in the canister with out water motion, so these clever little things swapped over to using sulfer.

All that she needs to do is give in a quick rinse and get it up and going again.
 
okay. . . once you hook it up again (as long as it doesn't stop) the good bacteria won't go over to the dark side and start stinkin' up your canister.
 
Just had a 10 hour power outage last night :(
my tank is in the cycling state. would this have affected the bacteria?
I placed some battery powered pump in the tank.
also an airstone in 1 of the chamber of the sump.
just wonderinf if my cycling process will be affected?
some chambers of the sump also smelled :(
immmediately made partial water change to tank when power came back on.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom