Low Rider Posted January 31, 2021 Share Posted January 31, 2021 Can someone please help with some advice. I recently purchased a 40 breeder aquarium and put 2 juvenile fancy goldfish in it. Within 15 minutes I noticed a bad smell. It smelled like vomit / a filthy disgusting lake. Just a very gross smell. Maybe a hint of rotten eggs to it. I used a Giant seeded sponge filter from another cycled tank . The ammonia levels were 0 ppm. nitrites 0ppm and my nitrates were the lowest I've ever seen like maybe 5 to 10 ppm. I have no idea why the tank smelled so bad. I tried everything. I bought lots and lots of carbon. I bough chemi- pure, purigen. I even added an adittional marineland penguin pro hang on back filter. So that was 2 filters running. One was the 375 gph and the other the 275 gph. And still the smell was just as bad. One week went by and I gave up. I brought the fish back to the store that I had purchased them and decided to call it quits. I did a 100% water change and the smell has drastically reduced. It's basically almost completely gone. Did this happen because gold fish are just very dirty fish with such a high bio load? The tank smelled fine before I put them in there. Should I get rid of all of my substrate / plants/ decorations and start all over? or can I just keep that in there and just wait a little while? Will this possibly happen with cleaner tropical fish like tetras? or was it because of goldfish? If anyone has any type of answer please let me know I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OceanTruth Posted January 31, 2021 Share Posted January 31, 2021 I kept Ranchu goldfish for years and never had an unpleasant odor from the tank. I have no idea what it could have been. Maybe something was off with those particular fish? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Low Rider Posted February 2, 2021 Author Share Posted February 2, 2021 Yeah perhaps the place I got the goldfish from was feeding them a bad diet. I've done so much research and no one else online has complained about goldfish having bad odor. The smell is roughly 70% better but there's still some remanence of it even after doing 100% water change. I never changed any of the filter media that's probably why. Right now my tank is empty. I'm going to try other fish with a low bio load in the hopes that there will not be any bad odor. Thanks for getting back to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Struggle Posted February 2, 2021 Share Posted February 2, 2021 Id change one thing at a time, it might be your water causing the smell. When our lakes turnover due to the seasons the tap water has a rather bad smell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now