So I get home today and as soon as I walk in my house the smell of sulfur hits me like a pimp hand. It was so bad my eyes were burning. I checked my tank, 60 gallon with live rock that is fully cured, red sea hot skimmer, uv sterilizer, rena xp3, 2 power heads, 2 clowns, powder brown tang, small lunare wrasse, marine beta, coral beauty, flame angel, and snowflake eel. I have several hermits and snails. 2 anenomes, one condy, the other sebae. Some leather, polyps, frogspawn, sponges, and mushrooms. The tank has been up for about two weeks. Long story.....I bought a used 120 that was already full of 140 lbs of liverock and sand. Set up the 120 but found out it was to big for my living room. So I got rid of it and replaced it with the 60. So basically the sand and rock have been in the tank for like 4 years because we took it straight out of the 120. Anyway...I checked for anything dead. Nothing. I checked my filter and skimmer. Everything is fine there. I vaccumed some of the sand and did about a 10% water change to see if that would help. My ammonia and nitrites are at 0. Nitrates are at about 40ppm. The temp is a steady 79 and all livestock look healthy and are eating. SO AFTER ALL THAT CAN ANYONE HELP ME WITH ANY IDEAS OF WHAT MIGHT BE CAUSING THE HORRIBLE SULFUR SMELL. I am stumped.
Sulfer Smell
- Thread starter joedirt
- Start date
Yes or give you a quess anyway. I'd say you have a dead sponge. They will die on exposure to air and if this tank and they really stink. If the early incarnation was a fowlr it might have had quite a few to. If I understand this correctly you also used the old sand ? If so you may have release a little hydrogen sulfide but I'd think that would have happened at transfer. That doesn't show in your readings though. I'd be painoid enough to take my water to a LFS/buddy and get them to double check your readings.
hth sorry to be vauge but all you can really do in these situations is guess.
hth sorry to be vauge but all you can really do in these situations is guess.
Yes. I used the old sand. We hydro vaced it because the guy who I bought the 120 didn't ever take care of the tank. When we drained the 120 to move it to my house it was vaced, then when we broke the 120 down to transfer to the 60 it was revaced. One of my sponges does look like part of it may be dying off. But it has looked that way for two weeks. I haven't had any smell problems until today. I have handled the sponge from LFS and both tank moves. I made sure it didn't mix with air. I hope it is just the sponge.