Habitat - Indoor :: Tank smells really bad

[daredevilgirl013]

I noticed last week that when you walk into my room it smells like something died. You go up to my tank and it's the tank that smells like that.

I cleaned his whole tank yesterday, scrubbed it down good and put some vinegar in the water I was scrubbing with, dumped that, and put totally fresh water in the tank when I was ready to fill it back up. I walk into my room today and that smell is back and it's coming from the tank.

What can I do to stop that and what is it?

[missibsu]

Did you clean the filter as well, and everything that is in it?

[daredevilgirl013]

Yep everything got a way thorough cleaning and scrub. Filters were changed and cleaned, all the fake plants scrubbed, even the rocks, the basking dock etc etc. The only thing that wasn't scrubbed was my fish, turtle, snails and ghost shrimp. (I figured they wouldn't like getting scrubbed)

[johann's mom]

did it smell better at all after you cleaned it? we've got this stuff from the pet store that eliminates turtle waste....there's also things to get rid of ammonia as well,these could be problems,our turtles leave their tank very messy! it sounds like you have plenty animals to clean stuff up tho,so see if it could smell like ammonia that might be the turtle waste aned maybe one of those cleaners could help.

[daredevilgirl013]

I have biotize it's a waste degrader that I put in the tank and I put it in right away when I changed the water. I thought it smelled better in here after I cleaned the tank but I didn't have my room shut up. Today I closed the door and when I opened it..wowzers. And so I did the sniff thing and yep it was coming from his tank but I have to add some more water today due to evaporation so I'll add some more biotize.

[sonyj]

johann's mom, The waste degraders actually do not get rid of the turtles waste. It just breaks it down but it's still in the water contributing to the pollution of your water quality in a form that you can not see (so it is more pleasing to your eye but not necessarily better for your turtle). And the more chemicals you can keep from using in your tank, the better your turtles are.

daredevilgirl013, Try to find out what the culprit is and eliminate it. It may take the process of elimination to find out but it would be worth it. One thing to look at would be the size of Mikey in comparison to the tank. Has he grown lately? Does he need a bigger home/more water to maintain a better water quality? Remember that the less water he has per size the more often it should be changed and the faster it will degrade in quality. This is just something to keep in mind as he gets older/larger.

[steve]

Have you had this smell before? Did it slowly build up and are you sure it's Mikey's setup? I am a bit puzzled here...

[daredevilgirl013]

I've had this smell before in his tank right before I cleaned it. For a day it didn't smell and then yesterday it did. I figured it would smell better even because I got rid of all my guppies that were multiplying in the tank, so now there is way less waste in the tank. Today it doesn't smell as bad so I don't know if it was just a freak thing yesterday or not that his tank smelled so much.

[liberation nyc]

I've noticed my tank is starting to smell too and I've only had it set up about a week or so. I have a filter running...could they possibly stank it up in such a short amount of time???

[z-chic]

I had a "rock" from the petshop that smelled terrible. It was one of those that stands up with a hole in the center for fish etc to swim in. It was white with blue streaks in it...well after a few months when I cleaned the tank, therewas a really bad smell and it was that rock. It must have been the synthetic materials in it breaking down or something.

[daredevilgirl013]

My tank does smell a bit now, but I put some turtle clean in it and tahdah..smell is gone, and then in a week just repeat the process. Works great!

[CountryGirl68]

Liberation, what size is the tank and what kind of filter do you have? It could be that your filter is not strong enough. Remember, you need a filter that is made for a tank that is at least 3x the size you actually have.

I'm actually looking to make a turtle dock from PVC because the zoomed turtle dock always has a funky smell to it, like the rock that Z-chic had. I clean it twice a week just to keep the smell down.

[z-chic]

Another thing...whenever you take a fish tank and do a complete water/filter change, it will usually get cloudy and sometimes smelly because the water balance gets out of whack. All the good bacteria etc, is gone and it takes a week or more for it to start balancing out again.

[CountryGirl68]

Another thing...whenever you take a fish tank and do a complete water/filter change, it will usually get cloudy and sometimes smelly because the water balance gets out of whack. All the good bacteria etc, is gone and it takes a week or more for it to start balancing out again.

To add to z-chic's response, in order to avoid getting rid of the bacteria in the filter, you should have permanent media (sponge, ceramic rings, etc.) in the filter where the bacteria will grow. I have ceramic rings and when I clean out the filter media, I put the rings in a bucket with tank water. When I'm ready to put it all together again, I lightly "swish" the media in the water just enough to get rid of any gunk. This helps to maintain the bacteria that has already developed.

[Shavannah]

The smelly tank culprits are quite puzzling...
Have you fed the turtle anything like meat, or anything soaked in tuna juice? I've read that it can foul the water pretty quickly. Have you checked for any leakage on the tank or filter? It could pool up somewhere unnoticably and get stagnant.
Just a couple thoughts, I really don't know, but I hope you get it sorted out!