I changed water today and when I had my nose directly over my tank I noticed a distinctly fishy odor. What is this and how do I get rid of it?
I change water twice weekly, at least 25% each time. I replace the filter monthly. I'm no where near capacity in regard to number of fish. I've only had one dead fish which was today. I'm not sure when he died but it wasn't anymore than 12 hours before I discovered him, and he was still on the bottom. And a very small fish, about 1 inch.
I had the same problem for about a week or two until I decided to add in a separate media bag of carbon to my tank (per Miami's suggestion). Since then there is absolutely zero odor... and i mean zero. Just be sure to wash the carbon properly before putting it in the tank.
this is one of the main reasons i over filtrate my tanks, ammo carb pads, coupled with double the carbon keeps my tanks absolutely odorless. you may want to add an extra bag of carbon as spongebob has said this should drop the odor down some
also the bio wheels can get a little on the nasty smalling side if they get a bad bactieria on them....almost a mold type crap........i loved my bio wheel on my old fresh water tank but got rid of it and the smell went with it...............please don't just trash your filter,lol...........might just try changing one wheel then the other in a week or so...................Boss
I have the biowheel, you wont be able to replace the wheel or clean it, but yes the two pads you have dont have nearly enough carbon in them... i would suggest only using one pad, placing it closer to the wheel, and buying a media bag and filling it with black diamond carbon. This will kill all odors, and will also catch some gunk on the way to the filter pad, so it works out well.
Spongebob, you may have already thought of this, but I thought I would let you know anyway. It is actually generally considered better to put the bag of carbon in between the filter pad and the biowheel. This enables a large chunk of the pollutants to be picked up by the filter pad which leads to the pores in your carbon filling up slower. This elongates the life of your carbon. Just thought I would pass it along.
Yeah i actually thought about this before when you had suggested it, but my filter doesn't allow this as there is no room between the filter pad and the biowheel, even if you fill the space thats farther from the biowheel... you get maybe an inch at best. And Zambize has my size filter. But yeah, i wish i could move it, id rather it not be used like a filter pad, thanks for the heads up though, I appreciate it.
Oh, my bad - I didn't remember saying that to you before or I wouldn't have mentioned it again. I didn't realize that you didn't have enough space either. I was just going off my Emperor 400. The space is tight in it, but I can cram a bag in there. I will try in the future to remember what I have already written, but you know how that goes.
