Lovely smells....I think

[reef tank 2.0]

Living most of my life in San Diego California I became VERY familiar with the smells and sights of the ocean.

Now that I live in Ohio, I have since brought the ocean in to my living room. With my tank being very new, I have started smelling "the ocean" in the living room.

Now, I realize it's a salt water aquarium, but I have not smelled the tank till now. To me, it smells like the ocean. Its not horrible at all, smells just like the ocean.

At what point will I smell something I shouldn't? Like a foul smell. Will I know?
Although I love the smell of the ocean, I'm a tad nervous that others that come in to my home won't smell something different than I do. How do I know if this smell I smell is good/bad?

 

[Member No. 1]

Maybe I'm immune to the smell, but mine has no smell at all unless I put my nose at the water surface, and even then it only smells like salt water. Visitors have never said they smell anything either.

 

[reefbroao]

if you have any sps that dies youll get a pretty foul smell lol. I recently moved and lost all but one of my sps during. smells absolutely rancid, almost threw up.

 

[billdogg]

If something dies and you don't remove it, it will smell a lot more like Lake Erie, circa 1970 than it will the Ocean.

When your skimmer really starts producing gunk, you probably don't want to take a real deep wiff of that either.

hth

 

[cloak]

Like mentioned above a skimmer cup that's beginning to get full can really smell. Any leftover food that's allowed to sit on the edge of the tank can be bad. A dead fish or snail that happened to jump or crawl out of the tank can really stink up a storm as well. As long as you pay attention and your not a slob you really shouldn't have any problems. GL.

 

[reef tank 2.0]

Good to know. I have been emptying the skimmer cup every 2-3 days. Not full, but I like a clean skimmer cup . The sump area doesn't smell like the ocean at all. It's just the DT where the water is rolling over at the top. Like I said, not foul at all. Certainly not a glade plug in either

 

[rags111875]

are you running carbon? i had the same issue with my old tank (smelling like the ocean) until i started running carbon. Then, i had crystal clear water and no ocean smell.

 

[MidwesternTexan]

Speaking of smells,

I like the various/healthy smells of sps when you take it out to frag, etc.

 

[reef tank 2.0]

i do run carbon in my reactor. wonder if that means i need to change it

 

[Sk8r]

I try to change out carbon at least every 2 weeks if I have it at all, because when it saturates it's alleged to release what it absorbed; but more to the point, it becomes a detritus trap.