Can anyone tell me what it means to have a sulfur smell coming from a salt water aquarium?
I work at a brand new hotel and we have this salt water aquarium and just recently it started smelling of sulfur or rotten eggs. It comes and goes, what is this from or what can we do? The guy that maint.it not sure why or is not tellin us?
yes this is a new fish tank
A rotten egg smell would come from hydrogen sulfide gas. This is toxic to fish and other things that live in the tank!!
It forms when your sand bed is too deep and there’s a lack of oxygen in the substrate. The normal bacteria that process the wastes from the tank use oxygen so what you get is anaerobic bacteria. Another possibility is that there’s a filter that isn’t functioning correctly. The power might have gone off, or the water level is too low for the filter to draw in water, so the filter is what’s lacking the oxygen. Or the filter was hooked up to a timer and it goes off at night, then comes back on in the morning when it should be on all the time. That could explain why the smell seems stronger at just some times during the day.
Some other possible causes might be from the electrical equipment, like if a wire was too close to a light and was overheating, or if there was dust.
It sounds as though you’re having an aquarium service company or pet store service your tank, and someone there should be able to figure out where the problem is coming from. Maybe the person who you talked with was new. Try calling them and asking to speak to an owner and explain the problem. If not, see if there are any pet stores or aquarium clubs in your area. Pet stores might have an installation or maintenance service and aquarists might be able to figure out just what’s going on from their own large tanks. But you want to get this fixed before you lose any fish or you start driving away customers because of the smell.
Is there a difference between regular salt and salt-water aquarium salt?
A rotten egg smell would come from hydrogen sulfide gas. This is toxic to fish and other things that live in the tank!!
It forms when your sand bed is too deep and there’s a lack of oxygen in the substrate. The normal bacteria that process the wastes from the tank use oxygen so what you get is anaerobic bacteria. Another possibility is that there’s a filter that isn’t functioning correctly. The power might have gone off, or the water level is too low for the filter to draw in water, so the filter is what’s lacking the oxygen. Or the filter was hooked up to a timer and it goes off at night, then comes back on in the morning when it should be on all the time. That could explain why the smell seems stronger at just some times during the day.
Some other possible causes might be from the electrical equipment, like if a wire was too close to a light and was overheating, or if there was dust.
It sounds as though you’re having an aquarium service company or pet store service your tank, and someone there should be able to figure out where the problem is coming from. Maybe the person who you talked with was new. Try calling them and asking to speak to an owner and explain the problem. If not, see if there are any pet stores or aquarium clubs in your area. Pet stores might have an installation or maintenance service and aquarists might be able to figure out just what’s going on from their own large tanks. But you want to get this fixed before you lose any fish or you start driving away customers because of the smell.
November 8th, 2009 at 8:32 amReferences :
is it a new tank?
if so it’s very likely ‘the guy’ used uncured rock.. the die off of which produces a horrific odor of rotten eggs
if it’s an older tank (a few months or more) fire "the guy" cause he can’t do his job right and hire someone who knows how to properly maintain a SW tank
November 8th, 2009 at 8:41 amReferences :