Strong odor of "pool water" in the home after adding crushed coral

[Just some nerd]

Hello everyone. I recently converted my 125 and 75 to fancy gold fish tanks. I've been keeping fish for years and I know what aquarium water should smell like when the ecosystem is healthy. But over the last few weeks my entire house has begun to smell like pool or ocean water. It's very strong and almost overwhelming. The tanks are cleaned regularly and all of the water parameters are exactly where they need to be. The only thing I can attribute the sudden change towards are bags of crushed coral that I added to each tank. Could this be the culprit?

[tonyjuliano]

Not in my experience. 

[eatyourpeas]

I believe that may be the culprit. @OnlyGenusCapsmentioned a similar effect in his P-Salt tank when added aragonite.

[OnlyGenusCaps]

On 7/3/2021 at 8:34 AM, Just some nerd said:

The only thing I can attribute the sudden change towards are bags of crushed coral that I added to each tank. Could this be the culprit?

Sorry to hear this is happening to you.  I've not done crushed coral, just the aragonite as @eatyourpeasmentioned.  I did get a distinct aroma of "the sea".  But I added 60lbs of the stuff as the only substrate.  After a few water changes, because the stuff is also super dusty despite thoroughly rinsing it, both the cloudiness and smell went away.  I imagine crushed coral comes in different levels of "cleanliness" for lack of a better word.  If you added significant quantities that still had material on it that could decompose, I could see it happening.  I'd do a few big, like 90%, water changes a few days apart and see if that improves the situation.  Sorry I don't have better advice than the standard aquarium "do a water change" trope.  🙃