Well I moved this weekend and now my tank stinks bad. I have a community tank, fake plants and such. Well After I moved and started filling up I noticed the sand smelled. I have no where else to put the fish so I filtered the water for about 10 hours before puttin the fish back in. Well I did loose 4 of my fish. Well any idea on what the smell was? I mix the sand every other day or so. The tank looks fine now, smell is pretty much gone, fish are swimming.
So I moved and now...
- Thread starter Sal329
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Possibly it was due to a gas build up of some sort. Have you tested your water parameters since the move? Its possible you lost some of your bacteria durring the move and the smell and fish loss could be related to that.
Guess i need to mix it more from now on. I tested PH and Nitrate. All seem fine. Myabe the stress killed them? I still have others that are doing great.
I think I'd go with the anaerobic bacteria buildup. They produce gas, H2S I think (not sure) which are toxic for fish. The gas build-up explains the stinky smell. Sand is more prone to this because it is more compact as compared to other substrates creating conditions suitable for anaerobic bacteria. :dive2:
What did it smell like?
H2S smells like rotten eggs, and as khombre said, it's unlikely in gravel, but sand can create the anaerobic environment required for the formation of this highly corrosive and deadly gas.
As an aside, if a pocket of H2S is encountered when they're drilling for oil like in the Gulf of Mexico, it's all about full evacuation with air masks on. They have detectors for it on the rigs and platforms. It's fairly insidious, the more you breathe it, the less you can detect the smell of it. Then you pass out. By this point it's fairly certain that you would die in short order. Or someone rescues you and all you have is severe brain damage. Nice stuff that H2S...
H2S smells like rotten eggs, and as khombre said, it's unlikely in gravel, but sand can create the anaerobic environment required for the formation of this highly corrosive and deadly gas.
As an aside, if a pocket of H2S is encountered when they're drilling for oil like in the Gulf of Mexico, it's all about full evacuation with air masks on. They have detectors for it on the rigs and platforms. It's fairly insidious, the more you breathe it, the less you can detect the smell of it. Then you pass out. By this point it's fairly certain that you would die in short order. Or someone rescues you and all you have is severe brain damage. Nice stuff that H2S...
could be a build of somthing in the sand or substrate. Keep an eye on the water paramiters and Hopefully there'll be no problems
My fiance just told me she ran tests again this morning everything was perfect. No smell from the tank at all. She moved the sand around. And the water is crystal clear.