The Water Is Smelling Funny.

Today I walked into my room and the smell hit me. Is smells like rotting food or compost. And the problem is I don't have very good air flow in my room so my room will smell like this for about a week no mater how much aresol spray I use. I decided to find out which tank it was coming from. ( I have 2 tanks in my room a 1 gallon and a 10 gallon). It was coming from the ten gallon. I just did a 80% water change. How could the water already smell bad? It has a filter. Is the filter bad? Please help me.

 

Bad smell can be from foul water. What are the tank parameters?

 

Tanks do have a certain smell to them but nothing that I would consider unpleasant. Agree on testing the water though. Also use caution with spraying anything into the air in a room with tanks. Sprays can end up contaminating your water and harming your tanks.

 

I haven't checked because when I went to go check I looked at the expiration date on the drop thingys and they were 2 years expired. So I threw them out. I am ordering more now though.

Do the apI test trips work too?

 

Carbon can clear water and smells, maybe add a new carbon cartridge as well. The actual drop kit is a lot more accurate than strips if you can afford it.

 

Are you breeding snails? If you have lots of snails they can smell pretty nasty if you don't keep the tank really clean. I have 200 mystery snails in a bare bottom tank and it smells if I don't vacuum the bottom ever other day.

Whatever you're spraying in the room, please don't. It's getting into the tanks.

 

How long has the tank been set up? If its a newer tank and cycling, it will smell. Other than that, no idea why it would smell.

 

I haven't checked because when I went to go check I looked at the expiration date on the drop thingys and they were 2 years expired. So I threw them out. I am ordering more now though.

Do the apI test trips work too?

You could’ve used the expired ones, I found myself in the same situation so I tested my water at my friends shop and then again at home with the expired kit, both were identical.

In my experience it’s been 100% accurate, It’s better than nothing

 

It means the water isn't cycled properly -keep doing 50 -90% water changes until the smell resolves / tank is cycled.
I actually cycle my tanks based purely on smell (no water testing). Good luck.

 

Thanks everyone!