Does your aquarium make your room smell?

most of those would destroy your tank in a matter of days ...

 

my room has never smelled and i have two tanks in it..but there is something that does make my room smell a little bit like a skunk..lol

 

how often do you empty your skimmer cup? you might empty it daily if you don't already.

 

No to all of these, though I do have the carbon but haven't used it yet, I'll do so in the morning. Instead of a skimmer I've just been using chaeto in the sump, but this week I set my sump back up, I had it floating around in the dt. I've been feeding brine shrimp and the live rock was right from the gulf, and I've had a bit of die off. Speaking of those air fresheners I tried sterilizing the room with my ozone generator and had a massive die off that I suspected was caused by the ozone but it could've been nitrates spiked from accumulation of waste since the chaeto wasn't set up right. I mean I had dead copepods floating around, it was bad; but yeah even though I did a big water change and have the nitrates down there's certainly some dead organic matter in there, but not outside the tank and the sump is clean. I heard something negative about UV lights but it's sounding pretty good right about now. At least I know that the smell isn't normal to having a saltwater aquarium and it's just something temporary. That's encouraging. Thanks!

 

I have my 55 right in my living room and it doesn't smell either. Hope you can figure it out soon.

 

I have a 180 and no smells from the tank. However when my 2 dogs get in the pond on the next property HOLY COW does it stink. You would think they went into a sewer, really though no oders. Hope you figure it out.

 

Most of the time when a tank smells, it means it needs a water change most likely! My tank smells great! (Sometimes.)

 

three most common sources of smell that I have found:
skimmer
algae
flatworms (planaria)- these guys smell TERRIBLE when they die, like i cant even explain how bad they smell

 

yes smell is not normal. from what your saying, i would say put the carbon in and when you can get a skimmer.
i have chaeto in my sump/refug also. it helps with the who eco thing but doesnt do what a skimmer does.

 

Ok, probably just waited too long to do a water change after adding the live rock; my chaeto does a good job cleaning the water of nitrates but I guess that's only when it's got that cfl on it (tired but think it's like 7k) the actinics aren't right for that stuff. It's already smelling better I think.
Where would you suggest I put that bag of carbon; could it go in the overflow? I'm searching for a uv sterilizer as well, does it matter what kind? Also, my dilemma with a skimmer is where to put it? the middle chamber has chaeto, the first one I'm going to do a dsb in and the third one would just overskim that chamber so what can I do? I guess I could forget the dsb or do it in the dt and use that first chamber which is something like 6x10 about 10" deep and there's maybe 18" clearance; know of any skimmers that would fit in there. Thank you.