My tank smells like seafood/fish/ocean?

[meegwell]

I know I'm possibly setting myself up for a afew sarcastic responses here...and the humor is welcomed...but I have never noticed any smell in my tank. When I hang a dirty filter sock to dry it smells bad. This is different, more of a ocean/seafood/fish smell. My tank is a year old and I have never noticed any smell like this.


What ight cause it? I recently added several new corals (zoos, war, hammer, some others)...

totally coincidentally I just installed a BRS dual reactor (GFO GAC) but that was after the smell and the smell did not prompt it...so I have been running carbon for three days now but the smell has been around a week or so.

Could the new coral additions cause this smell?

[M Woodhill]

IMO tis a strong indicator of microalgae outbreak. somethin is becomin fishy in ur tank, lol

try a water test n c whats happenin

[thegrun]

It is possible the new corals are the cause as they release toxins to fight for space. What we think of as the "ocean smell" is actually the smell of things dying. In the open ocean that smell isn't present. It only smells near the shore where dead and decaying organisms pile up. The carbon will help a lot, cleaning your filter socks every 3-4 days will also help reduce the smell.

[meegwell]

Originally Posted by M Woodhill

IMO tis a strong indicator of microalgae outbreak. somethin is becomin fishy in ur tank, lol

try a water test n c whats happenin

I did just test my TDS for the first time in months and it read 36 - I did this because of ongoing algea issues (longer than the smell) - I immediately ordered replacement filters for my rodi unit. Maybe all related.

[jdezek]

IME if the water gets a smell it usually tends to have high nitrates.

[M Woodhill]

Originally Posted by meegwell

I did just test my TDS for the first time in months and it read 36 - I did this because of ongoing algea issues (longer than the smell) - I immediately ordered replacement filters for my rodi unit. Maybe all related.

how bout nitrate n phos? IMO higher phos always brought me an outbreak of cyanos n dinos, whose outbreak always brought me a strong odor of sea

[GHill762]

I've never noticed my water smelling this way, but when I take equipment or macroalgae out of the tank it always smells fishy..

[BrianB421]

Run carbon to get rid of the funk.

[Ted_C]

Neither air, water, nor salt have any odor. Therefore, the odor of so-called "ocean air" is actually the odor of materials deposited on the beach, largely decomposing organisms, both seaweeds and animal life.

Basically, if you have this smell - you have something bad happening.

[ca1ore]

Not necessarily. Most of the time a tank should not have that 'fishy' smell, but it is not unusual after some kind of 'disruptive' event - heavy feeding, major cleaning or addition of a lot of new corals. For example, if I feed my tank a good amount of Mysis, and I don't rinse them first, not unusual for the tank to smell bad for an hour or two. If your tank smells bad continuously, then there is a problem; either the biological filter is not sufficient, or something is fouling the water. GAC is a good suggestion, as is poly filter.

BTW, I have found absolutely no correlation between a tank smelling bad and nitrate levels.

[terrypercula]

Originally Posted by jdezek

IME if the water gets a smell it usually tends to have high nitrates.

Agreed. Check into that run some tests.

[boxorocks]

pull back on feedings for a while. There is too much fresh goo in there.

[Buzz1329]

Originally Posted by brianb421

run carbon to get rid of the funk.

+1

[meegwell]

Originally Posted by Buzz1329

+1

Here is what it was..in my overflow (coast to coast) i had a long piece of eggcrate that originally was blocking snails from getting into the siphon....i have since installed a net on the pvc but left that eggcrate in there. It was basically working as an algae scrubber since one of my t5 bulbs sits directly over it (and obviously the nutrients were there). I pulled it out, along with a huge chunk of green (what i believe to be hair) algae. It was covered in growth and smelled strong enough to conclude it was the source. This algae is not present anywhere else in the tank or sump....including the fuge which is currently not growing any algae. My overflow was basically working as a fuge. I think i need to at least remove the bulb directly above it?

[phxreefer]

Sounds to me like it was working great. I would put it back and export/clean it more often.

[dmaynard2]

dead snails?

[meegwell]

Originally Posted by dmaynard2

dead snails?

Probably. It was clumpy.

[loganlemaster]

Gha does reek

[s2nhle]

tagging along