Tank smells bad, like a beach

[dhof]

I'm about 2 years into my tank, and things were really dialed in. Excellent polyp extension and great growth of both SPS and LPS corals.

I went on a trip and was away for 6 days, but I have everything on automatic dosers, so the tank had everything maintained like it normally has.

Some differences:

1. While I was away, I fed refrigerated liquid brine shrimp instead of my usual frozen cubes. My fish don't really like the liquid brine shrimp so most of it goes uneaten. It's very possible that I overfed the liquid brine shrimp.
2. Before I left, I cleaned my protein skimmer, and when I returned, I found that the air diffuser cup inside the skimmer was not attached right. There was almost no skimmate produced during that week I was away.
3. About 2 weeks before leaving, I switched amino acid dosing from Red Sea Reef Energy to Brightwell Coral Amino. I've been dosing the starting amount of brightwell per the label. This might be a lower Amino Acid amount than I was doing with the Red Sea, but I don't think there is any way to tell. I was dosing 4.4mL each of Red Sea A and B, and switched over to CoralAmino at 1mL per day.

Observations:

1. Upon returning, the tank smelled VERY bad. The sort of smell you can smell 1 or 2 rooms away. It isn't a rotten egg odor, it's more like the smell of a strong-smelling beach on a hot day, but very strong. It's similar to the smell of what a skimmer cup skimmate normally smells like, but the whole tank (display and sump) smell.
2. I noticed 1 dead snail when I returned, but he was pretty darn old.
3. My corals look like hell, barely any polyps showing on the SPS, and my Sinularia and Rock Flower Anenome look especially unhappy. My rock flower actually released his foot from his PVC pipe he has been happy in for several months.
4. The water isn't super-clear like it normally is. I'd hate to call it cloudy, but it just isn't very clear like normal.
5. I usually have to clean algae off of the glass once or twice per week, but I haven't had any algae on the glass at all. Typically when the algae is on the glass before I clean it, there are thousands of coepepods on it, but now I don't really notice a lot of coepepods, but maybe that's because I only really see them when there is algae on the glass.

Things I've tried:

1. I fixed the diffuser cup in the skimmer, the skimmer is working like normal now, but isn't producing much skimmate at all (somewhat unusual for the amount of bubbles in the chamber). I put some bags of carbon on the top of the skimmer lid to help with the stench of the air coming out of the cup.
2. I already have an Auto-Water-Change setup running on the tank, doing about 20% water change each week. This has never stopped running, but each day I've replaced 10% of the water in a manual water change. I've done the manual water change of 10% now 6 times over the past several days. I did vacuum one side of my tank during one of the manual water changes, and it didn't seem to produce any more gunk than normal.
3. I run carbon in a BRS reactor, and I've changed that out twice since returning. I also put a few scoops in a bag in the sump. The carbon from the reactor I replaced didn't really stink very bad or anything.
4. I dosed 3 capfuls of Dr. Tim's re-fresh
5. I stopped dosing the Brightwell CoralAmino and have resumed dosing the Red Sea Reef Energy
6. I stopped dosing Brightwell Ferrion completely (previously 1 mL per day)
7. I stopped dosing Phytoplankton completely (previously 100mL per day)

Parameters:

1. Alk=9.0, Cal=440, Mg=1340, Nitrate=4, Phos=0.02, Iron=<0.02, Ammonia=0

I'm at a loss here for how to address this smell and get my tank back to normal again. My plan is to keep going with 10% water changes every day until things get better. If anyone has any suggestions or ideas, I'm game to try anything....

 

[ccombs]

Interesting, I would suggest carbon, but it looks like you already tried that. Also, adding beneficial bacteria is always a good step, which you also did.

Here is my theory, and it is way out there. Your nose can go 'blind' to smells in your house. I wonder if your tank always had an odor but you didn't notice it until you were removed from the situation for a few days.

This happens to me all the time when I travel for work. I will come home and smell something off, but my wife has no clue what I am even talking about.

Typically my solution is to change the air filter. I have noticed since having a fish tank that my house will start to smell.... not sure how to describe it..... damp? But then it will go away when I replace air filters. It happens about every three months when I normally change. My nose reminds me if my brain forgets.

Those are my thoughts, hopefully it was helpful.

 

[vetteguy53081]

ChemiPure blue or as aforementioned- Carbon.
Carbon removes odors and polishes water. Chemipure Blue additionally helps stabilize PH, and removes phospahtes and nitrates.

 

[ScottB]

You are doing everything I would do.

The only thing I might add is a note of caution. You are taking several actions here that are independently very safe. I don't know what nutrient levels your tank is normally accustomed to, but I would be conscious of nutrient strip risk from pulling several levers. While you are "in corrective process" keep an eye on nitrates and phosphates.

(And yes, I am paranoid about nutrients because I am fighting dinos for the third time this year. You'd think I would learn.)

 

[dhof]

Thx guys. My nutrients are stable where they have always been and I’m monitoring closely. Wonder if there is any danger to throw more carbon than normal at it? I’m using the 1tblspn brs Rox per 10 gallons. Any harm in doubling that for a few days? Or tripling it?

 

[TheOne]

When I want my tank to sparkle I dump a couple of bags full of carbon into my filter cups. By the next day I have crystal clear water. I've never had a problem with anything doing that. It will get rid of the ocean smell also.

I use this because it's cheap for a big container full. Just prerinse before adding.

 

[ScottB]

Thx guys. My nutrients are stable where they have always been and I’m monitoring closely. Wonder if there is any danger to throw more carbon than normal at it? I’m using the 1tblspn brs Rox per 10 gallons. Any harm in doubling that for a few days? Or tripling it?

Only POTENTIAL downside I have heard (never witnessed) is an increased chance of HLLE disease in fish -- particularly tangs. Rinse it real good to avoid charcoal particulate entering the water.

Anyone else see a potential issue?

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

I agree it should be fine so long as the carbon is rinsed adequately

 

[dhof]

It's now been 2 weeks since my tank suddenly presented with the very strong smell of a hot summer beach. I've been running carbon in a reactor, and finally about 4 days ago the water is back to crystal clear, and the smell is 95% gone. I've done more manual water changes than I care to admit, and I'm now going to let the tank return to the normal AWC schedule of 15% per week going forward.

The Sinulara and the Rock Flower are now mostly recovered and are very close to normal looking. All the LPS seem to be doing really well and maybe even look better than they did before. The Sinulara shedded a whole bunch of waxy material about 3 days ago and it went from looking awful to looking normal again.

Both of my Montipora look normal with great polyp extension. Every other SPS in the tank are still not showing any polyps at all. This is very worrisome to me because prior to this event 2 weeks ago, all my SPS had extremely good polyps showing all day long. I still have no idea what caused all this havoc, but I hope my SPS start to recover soon.

All my parameters are still very stable, as described in the first post, but I have since also tested Iodine at 0.06 (good) and Potassium at 320ppm (bad). I'm dosing about 8 ppm of Red Sea Potassium each day to get it more towards 390ppm and see if that helps. I also put my LEDs on 50% acclimation because I'm so worried about the lack of any polyps on all these SPS. Only 1 of the SPS has had any color change, it's a very large acropora, and it appears to be losing some color in the trunk part of each arm. Not bleaching, but definitely much lighter color on the trunk of the arms than before.

1. Any advice on how long irritated SPS might take before they start showing polyps again?
2. Any thoughts on whether a low potassium of 320ppm would really be something that could be causing the SPS to not show their polyps? I guess at this point my tank appears fairly normal except for the lack of polyps on my SPS.

Thanks,

 

[LegendaryCG]

Run a UV sterilizer for a couple days?

 

[maroun.c]

whenever I have unexplained issues I do the following:
-start by sending a water sample to ICP as that might show some contaminants that I'm missing.
-I do larger water changes than ones you did, VS automated daily/weekly water changes. A 30-40 percent water changes is much more efficient than 3-4 10% water changes in a month. I've done as high as 50 percent water changes twice a week and had no issues from the water changes as long as I make sure that new saltwater alk and temp matches tank parameters.
-Carbon changes I'd run large amount a reactor and change it daily just to make sure whatever toxins or other that are in the tank gets immediately removed without media getting exhausted.
-polyfilters just throw one in the tank as it'll remove whatever is there and color changes might indicate what it was.
-make sure your skimmer is working fine especially when you know it wasn't working last two weeks.
-look for anything that might have been dropped in the tank or any dead fish or do oyur fish coutn to make sure you haven't had unnoticed fish deaths that might have messed up water quality.