My Room Smells... Like Fish

[backley420]

i have a small room where i have a 50g and a 30g tank. . i dont have any dead fish and both tanks are understocked. Any tips on making the smell less... smelly?

 

[Aphotic Phoenix]

The "fishy smell" comes from DOCs (dissolved organic compounds) called phenols. Activated carbon in the filters is the quick cure. If you want to solve the problem instead of just filtering it out however I would consider looking at things like:
1) How thorough your cleaning during tank maint is
2) What you are feeding (I've found that sinking tablets and algae tablets can cause a "fishy smell")
3) How much you are feeding

 

[DiscusKeeper403]

All I would recommend is bigger water changes...

 

[murphyk32]

If you feed sinking tablets it might be the problem because i have the exact same problem and i feed sinking tablets so now that it has been mentioned as a possable source,, it seems to make sence for me...

Murph

 

[Tolak]

A healthy tank should smell like freshly turned earth. With appropiate water changes, gravel cleaning, and filter maintenance this is all the smell you should have coming from your tanks. If you have spilled tank water on the floor without using a disinfectant to neuteralize the bacteria you will get a foul smell.

I use a mix of 1 part bleach to 20 parts water, along with a good shot of laundry detergent on my fishroom floor. If my 8'x16' fishroom doesn't smell fishy your room shouldn't. If I leave spilled water without mopping it will smell fishy after a couple of days, and totally disappears after mopping with a little bleach.

 

[backley420]

Activated carbon in the filters is the quick cure.

i have some activated carbon(didn't know i bought it) but where does it go? I don't think it goes for my filter since i have a "over the ledge" whisper filter.
but if it can go in the filter, where can it go?

 

[roseK]

i think on most external filters it goes between/inside the media?

 

[Aphotic Phoenix]

Usually carbon goes inside a filter cartridge insert...depending on the brand and model of the filter there may or may not be a way to open the filter cartridge to add/replace media.

I do not use carbon in my tanks, and they don't smell. As I said before, it's much better to determine the source of the problem than just trying to filter it out. This is the exact reason in which I do not use carbon in fact...if the tank smells "off" I will know that something weird is going on.

 

[backley420]

thank you- but ummmmm whats the media?

and can someone second that so I don't mess up my tank and filter?

 

[Tolak]

I believe Whisper filters have the little white bag with carbon already in it that clips into a frame. The roughness of the frame is supposed to hold your nitrifying bacteria with a larger surface area, the white bag itself provides mechanical filtration, and the carbon in the bag is your chemical filtration.

I haven't messed whith a Whisper filter in years, so they may have changed the design. If your filter media sounds like this description, you may already be running carbon.

 

[afishdude]

your correct tolak. im currently running 6 whispers and thats they way it works.

 

[gowing238]

Where do you keep your fish food? I used to keep flakes and pellets under the hood until i realised the bright lights where cooking it! School boy error i know!!!!

 

[scooterchick]

Are all your fish accounted for? We went away for the weekend a few weeks ago and when we were gone my angel died. Tank smelt terrible.

With regular water changes there should be no detectable smell unless you sniff inside the tank, and even at that it shouldn't be offensive.