My sump STINKS? Not a personal problem

[d-maz]

I`ve noticed over the last couple of weeks that my sumps has a fishy odor. It`s bad enough that when you walk in the room, you can smell it. It seems like water changes help it, but it still smell somewhat. My tank only been up and running for 2 months now.

This is your basic mud filter. First chamber, skimmer, middle chamber, miracle mud and cheato, bio balls in bubble trap and last chamber, return.

I`m not missing any fish, so it`s not from a leaper. There was some red stuff growing on the glass of the middle chamber that had some bubbles trapped in it. I sucked it all off when I did my water change. Anyone have this problem before? What do you guys/gals think it could be causing this fishy odor? Any help would be appreciated and would also help get my wife off my back about the smell.


Thanks, Dave

 

[painkiller1009]

How much flow is going through it?
You try running carbon.

 

[smmscott]

How full is the skimmer? Also have you ever overflown your sump?
These could be your culprits. Also now that I reread your post. I would think the bio balls could be a problem as well.

 

[d-maz]

My flow is pretty good. My cheato doesn`t tumble at all though. I`m going to try and put my canister filters return in my middle chamber to get my cheato tumbling and just more flow in there over all. I haven`t been running carbon, but since I cleaned my sump for about 4 hours, I switched to the carbon filter to see how it does.

I dump my skimmer cup every 2-3 days. Although the smell I`m get is stinky, it`s no where near as foul as the skimmer cup. No, I`ve never overflowed. I was thinking of that too, but nothing is wet down there. I did take out all my bio balls today and soaked them for a while. They cleaned up like new. I do think that those may be the culprit. They really smelled bad.

Thanks everybody

 

[rj ripetide]

Ditch the bio balls...Their nothing but trouble.. If you have live rock and Miricle Mud and cheato your be fine without the Bio-Balls....

 

[DiscoReefRover]

dido on ditchin the balls those things are nothing but PITA.....

 

[weluvfish54]

+5 on rid of bioballs!!

 

[Esquare]

Hey d, did you say that you pulled all of your bio balls, cleaned them then put them back? Don't know, but that may cause a mini cycle. I could be wrong though, happens all of the time.

 

[fambrough]

Don't mess with trying to get your chaeto to tumble. That's another reef myth that still gets bandied about. I believe it was J Dieck who ran a test on this and found improved growth rates when the algae was left in normal sump flow conditions. Now, if you're has some concerns about detritus, knock yourself out, but there are better solutions. Sounds like your skimmer is doing it's job.

Ditch the bio balls like the others recommended. Read up on this, however. IIRC, you don't want to do it all at once. Anyone?

Best of luck.

 

[Esquare]

Slow swap out is what I recall as well fabbrough.

 

[tolo13]

I had the smell also awhile back. I put a power head in the sump and let it break the surface for better water movement. It got rid of the smell.

 

[Tswifty]

surface flow (try the powerhead for 24hrs), carbon, and pull out the bioballs at a handfull a day.

 

[Akronviper]

I throw a little carbon in my skimmer cup to help with the smell, I don't know if it does any thing but it couldn't hurt.

 

[DevilBoy]

by any chance when doing water changes do you siphon water out of your sump or display tank?

 

[d-maz]

I siphon out of my sump.


After giving my sump a real good cleaning, it doesn`t really smell at all. I think it was the crap caught in the bio balls.

Thanks for the help everybody.

 

[GSMguy]

Ditch the bioballs they are nitrate factories.

i have a powerhead in my sump it is quite benificial i think it helps keep the PH in the sump up and keeps detritus in the water column for the skimmer to catch