Will carbon get rid of the rotten egg smell?

i wouldnt "wait" till the weekend to clean the filter take 20 minutes and do it now. and there has to be a reason it stopped working they dont just "get fixed". check the impellar and clean it your filter must be a disaster inside from just sitting and all it is doing is just adding toxins to your water as long as you keep it running without cleaning it.
 
RodInCALIFORNIA said:
i wouldnt "wait" till the weekend to clean the filter take 20 minutes and do it now. and there has to be a reason it stopped working they dont just "get fixed". check the impellar and clean it your filter must be a disaster inside from just sitting and all it is doing is just adding toxins to your water as long as you keep it running without cleaning it.
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Certainly true, but most of the crud in the filter has now been washed out into the tank, hence the stinky water and advice to keep changing that water.

But for sure clean out the filter ASAP and let it re-cycle.

Ian
 
Carbon will absolutely absorb H2S. Aeration or a small dose of hydrogen peroxide will also help oxidize the sulfides into sulfates that don't stink. And as stated previously water changes are always a good thing.
 
My aquarium has a faint garlic smell because I use it in my snail jello and homemade PoP feeding blocks.

LOL... If only I kept Tilapia - that could be quite revolutionary... pre-Garlic marinated Tilapia... :)
 
THE V said:
Let's see if I got this right. After a few months of being off but wet you turned back on the Rena. Did you clean out the Rena when you fixed it?

The rotten egg smell is from Hydrogen sulfide gas (H2S). This is a waste product from anaerobic bacteria metabolisms. This is actually dangerous if the concentrations are high enough.

The solution is water changes, increased circulation, addition of an airstone, and CLEANING OUT THE FILTER.

With all of these steps it should clear out in a few hours.
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The V is dead on here.


As far as cleaning it out, if it's been running for a day or two...well, any harm is done. It wouldn't hurt to clean it out, but it's not a huge issue at this point.

It sounds like you may have had a gunked up impeller or something, and after months of being off, the stuff just rotted away.
 
ok. thanks everyone. i cleaned out my filter and loaded it with ammo-carb just to be safe. and i did 3 50% water changes today. i have just one last question:
i bought this stuff from petco called "filter fiber" and i have been using it in my tanks by wrapping it around my ammo-carb. it seems that it works quite well as a type of filter media and i was just curious if it truly can be used as filter media or if it was just the carbon keeping the water clean?
 
yes filter fiber is a great filter material i buy it at walmart in huge bags in the sewing dept. its super cheap it's the same thing you buy at the pet store but cost's alot less. they have 2 kinds just dont buy the flame retardant kind its saves flame retardent on the bag and the bags are different colors.
 
I am guessing by the name that the ammo carb removes ammonia. If this is true then you are starving your bio-filter. I would recommend using regular activated carbon which won't remove ammonia and therefor won't starve your bio-filter. I believe that ammo carb is a mix of carbon and something else to remove ammonia, if you use just carbon then it might even be more effective than the ammo carb because there will be more carbon in the same amount of media than there is with the ammo carb;).
 
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