# bad smell from cycling tank



## anastasisariel (Oct 4, 2009)

The oily looking film may be ammonia? Take a swab and collect some off the surface of the water then smell and see if it is the bad smell


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## nayr (Jan 18, 2014)

probably a bacterial bloom and its decaying remains.. if your plants are looking fine just ride it out and it should be normal fishy smelling by the time its cycled. 

just watch it, which it sounds like you are.. and stay ontop of the water changes so it stays ideal for growing nitrifying bacteria.


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## ocelotSeven (Sep 22, 2014)

I hadn't thought of the q-tip idea, thanks.

I've been doing weekly 20% changes, so I think I'm good there. I'm also dumping in the "beginner" regime of Seachem liquid fertilizers 2x week (NPKFe) for the plants to get established. CO2 is ~30ppm. Water is clear, and everything else seems in order (I might need to cut the photoperiod a bit until the plants are better established, but this has been working well for me in my other planted tanks).


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## greaser84 (Feb 2, 2014)

ocelotSeven said:


> Forum newbie here. I am attempting to bring up a new 20g L planted tank. I suspect I know what's going on, but I wanted to get some feedback. What I'm noticing and what's concerning me is a very foul smell coming from the tank when I open the glass top. It's not an ammonia-y smell like cyanobacteria, but more of a strong mildew-y smell. There is a sheen of oily residue on the surface of the tank and my suspicion is that this is where it's coming from. I have a little bit of experience (half-dozen tanks over several years), and I've never encountered this before. Any ideas ?
> 
> Some info:
> 
> ...


I've had that smell before, most likely from bacteria. Nothing to worry about. See if you can add some surface agitation by pointing the spray bar towards the surface to break up the film. I would however strongly recommend removing the purigen till the cycle is over, other wise its going to remove ammonia and nitrite prolonging the cycle.


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## ocelotSeven (Sep 22, 2014)

So, I re-angled my spraybar so it gives a lot more surface agitation. Too early to tell but I'm hopeful it might make some difference. 12 hours later no oily sheen but it still reeks  I tried swabbing a bit of it up and giving it a whiff, before I changed the spray angle, and to my surprise, not much smell at all from the stuff on top.

I also removed the Purigen from the filter as suggested--leaving it in during the cycle was sort-of a brain-fart but it's become habit when I change/clean filters on my established tanks to toss in some Purigen. Undoubtedly this will help my cycle along.


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## Diana (Jan 14, 2010)

> NH3 minimal


Add ammonia to 5 ppm to jump start the cycle, then allow it to drop to 3 ppm and maintain it there until the cycle is complete by testing daily. 

Plants may not like this much ammonia, though. You could also cycle it with 1 ppm ammonia, but bring it back to this level twice a day. 

Here is the fishless cycle.

Cycle: To grow the beneficial bacteria that remove ammonia and nitrite from the aquarium.

Fish-In Cycle: To expose fish to toxins while using them as the source of ammonia to grow nitrogen cycle bacteria. Exposure to ammonia burns the gills and other soft tissue, stresses the fish and lowers their immunity. Exposure to nitrite makes the blood unable to carry oxygen. Research methemglobinemia for details. 

Fishless Cycle: The safe way to grow more bacteria, faster, in an aquarium, pond or riparium. 

The method I give here was developed by 2 scientists who wanted to quickly grow enough bacteria to fully stock a tank all at one time, with no plants helping, and overstock it as is common with Rift Lake Cichlid tanks. 

1a) Set up the tank and all the equipment. You can plant if you want. Include the proper dose of dechlorinator with the water. 
Optimum water chemistry:
GH and KH above 3 German degrees of hardness. A lot harder is just fine. 
pH above 7, and into the mid 8s is just fine. 
Temperature in the upper 70s F (mid 20s C) is good. Higher is OK if the water is well aerated. 
A trace of other minerals may help. Usually this comes in with the water, but if you have a pinch of KH2PO4, that may be helpful. 
High oxygen level. Make sure the filter and power heads are running well. Plenty of water circulation. 
No toxins in the tank. If you washed the tank, or any part of the system with any sort of cleanser, soap, detergent, bleach or anything else make sure it is well rinsed. Do not put your hands in the tank when you are wearing any sort of cosmetics, perfume or hand lotion. No fish medicines of any sort. 
A trace of salt (sodium chloride) is OK, but not required. 
This method of growing bacteria will work in a marine system, too. The species of bacteria are different. 

1b) Optional: Add any source of the bacteria that you are growing to seed the tank. Cycled media from a healthy tank is good. Decor or some gravel from a cycled tank is OK. Live plants or plastic are OK. I have even heard of the right bacteria growing in the bio film found on driftwood. (So if you have been soaking some driftwood in preparation to adding it to the tank, go ahead and put it into the tank) Bottled bacteria is great, but only if it contains Nitrospira species of bacteria. Read the label and do not waste your money on anything else. 
At the time this was written the right species could be found in: 
Dr. Tims One and Only
Tetra Safe Start
Microbe Lift Nite Out II
...and perhaps others. 
You do not have to jump start the cycle. The right species of bacteria are all around, and will find the tank pretty fast. 

2) Add ammonia until the test reads 5 ppm. This ammonia is the cheapest you can find. No surfactants, no perfumes. Read the fine print. This is often found at discount stores like Dollar Tree, or hardware stores like Ace. You could also use a dead shrimp form the grocery store, or fish food. Protein breaks down to become ammonia. You do not have good control over the ammonia level, though. 
Some substrates release ammonia when they are submerged for the first time. Monitor the level and do enough water changes to keep the ammonia at the levels detailed below. 

3) Test daily. For the first few days not much will happen, but the bacteria that remove ammonia are getting started. Finally the ammonia starts to drop. Add a little more, once a day, to test 5 ppm. 

4) Test for nitrite. A day or so after the ammonia starts to drop the nitrite will show up. When it does allow the ammonia to drop to 3 ppm. 

5) Test daily. Add ammonia to 3 ppm once a day. If the nitrite or ammonia go to 5 ppm do a water change to get these lower. The ammonia removing species and the nitrite removing species (Nitrospira) do not do well when the ammonia or nitrite are over 5 ppm. 

6) When the ammonia and nitrite both hit zero 24 hours after you have added the ammonia the cycle is done. You can challenge the bacteria by adding a bit more than 3 ppm ammonia, and it should be able to handle that, too, within 24 hours. 

7) Now test the nitrate. Probably sky high! 
Do as big a water change as needed to lower the nitrate until it is safe for fish. Certainly well under 20, and a lot lower is better. This may call for more than one water change, and up to 100% water change is not a problem. Remember the dechlor!
If you will be stocking right away (within 24 hours) no need to add more ammonia. If stocking will be delayed keep feeding the bacteria by adding ammonia to 3 ppm once a day. You will need to do another water change right before adding the fish.
__________________________

Helpful hints:

A) You can run a fishless cycle in a bucket to grow bacteria on almost any filter media like bio balls, sponges, ceramic bio noodles, lava rock or Matala mats. Simply set up any sort of water circulation such as a fountain pump or air bubbler and add the media to the bucket. Follow the directions for the fishless cycle. When the cycle is done add the media to the filter. I have run a canister filter in a bucket and done the fishless cycle.

B) The nitrogen cycle bacteria will live under a wide range of conditions and bounce back from minor set backs. By following the set up suggestions in part 1a) you are setting up optimum conditions for fastest reproduction and growth.
GH and KH can be as low as 1 degree, but watch it! These bacteria use the carbon in carbonates, and if it is all used up (KH = 0) the bacteria may die off. 
pH as low as 6.5 is OK, but by 6.0 the bacteria are not going to be doing very well. They are still there, and will recover pretty well when conditions get better. 
Temperature almost to freezing is OK, but they must not freeze, and they are not very active at all. They do survive in a pond, but they are slow to warm up and get going in the spring. This is where you might need to grow some in a bucket in a warm place and supplement the pond population. Too warm is not good, either. Tropical or room temperature tank temperatures are best. (68 to 85*F or 20 to 28*C)
Moderate oxygen can be tolerated for a while. However, to remove lots of ammonia and nitrite these bacteria must have oxygen. They turn one into the other by adding oxygen. If you must stop running the filter for an hour or so, no problem. If longer, remove the media and keep it where it will get more oxygen. 
Once the bacteria are established they can tolerate some fish medicines. This is because they live in a complex film called Bio film on all the surfaces in the filter and the tank. Medicines do not enter the bio film well. 
These bacteria do not need to live under water. They do just fine in a humid location. They live in healthy garden soil, as well as wet locations. 

C) Planted tanks may not tolerate 3 ppm or 5 ppm ammonia. It is possible to cycle the tank at lower levels of ammonia so the plants do not get ammonia burn. Add ammonia to only 1 ppm, but test twice a day, and add ammonia as needed to keep it at 1 ppm. The plants are also part of the bio filter, and you may be able to add the fish sooner, if the plants are thriving.


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## ocelotSeven (Sep 22, 2014)

Sorry to resurrect this thread but I wanted to post an update.

Smell: the strange mildewey smell persists, however, right after a water change I notice it is much less pronounced, and I can detect a "normal tank smell". In general, its never as strong anymore as when I first posted, but it's still noticeable. Interestingly, it seems to be strongest on the margins of the light cycle, but that doesn't make much sense--I'd have expected it to maybe be stronger on one end or the other but not both. It's also possible my nose is broken  The tank water tests fine so I've decided I'm not going to worry about it.

Cycle: the tank has fully cycled. I finally got impatient and bought ammonia from "Dr. Tim's" online, and it did the trick. I observed a textbook cycle over the course of about a week, and without any livestock, save plants (the cleaner shrimp I'd originally added were removed and put to work elsewhere).

Other stuff: I had the "typical" diatom bloom shortly after I noticed nitrites starting to get processed. I'm now seeing a fair amount of green algae, especially on the glass, and some hair algae on the tips of things, but that all seems pretty normal in my experience, and it's been easy to clean manually so-far. I'm waiting on quarantine for some snails and otos, once they're added I don't expect I'll have much algae left after terribly long. In the last few days, I've noticed a few (what I believe are) detritus worms on the rear glass and along the edges of the substrate. I've started another thread with microscope pics if anyone can help with identification. Since I only intend on housing RCS, nerites and otos in this tank, I hope they don't get out of control, as I'm unsure if RCS have an appetite for them.

Here's a recent pic:








Thanks for all your input.


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