- All right, today's problem,
you may not want to admit it,
but your tank and the room it's in smell like poo,
algae, or just like a pet store.
- Yeah, so today, we've got the top 10 things
to get you past this.
(upbeat drum music)
- This is BRS TV Problem Solvers.
If your family or your guests at your home
are begging you to solve that stinky tank,
this video is the solution,
starting with number one.
- Solution number one is pick up some carbon rocks.
Carbon is our preferred stuff here.
Just a little bag, even better in a media reactor,
but carbon does a lot to pull the,
not only pigments out of the water,
but the stenches, those things that cause smells,
can also pull them out of the water.
You'll be surprised at how far
a little bag of carbon could go.
- Low dust, high efficiency carbon, like the ROX,
will get the odor out of the tank, end of story.
This is the simplest solution,
a little filter bag like this one.
Again, even better in a reactor,
but odor will be a thing of the past.
Number two: carbon again,
but this time on your tank's fart machine,
meaning your protein skimmer.
This thing is filled with decaying organic matter,
fish turds, the whole thing,
and worse yet, it's blowing air past it into your room.
It should smell.
If it doesn't, your skimmer's probably not working.
- Yeah, the answer here is just exactly
what we got going on here.
Fill a little bag full of carbon and...
Probably a couple cups or a cup,
and just put it on the top of your skimmer lid.
All of the air typically comes out
of the little holes in the lid.
That's the only place for the air to escape.
And if you have them covered with carbon, bye-bye stink.
- This is such a common problem,
where I don't know why protein skimmers
don't actually have a little accessory to make this easier.
'Cause you are, you're blowing this past,
and if you can't smell it, again,
either the skimmer isn't working
or, worse yet, you're just accustomed to it.
- Number three kind of gets away from us every now and then,
and that's just cleaning and detailing the sump.
I don't know how many times
I've pulled equipment out of my sump
and it's just this, you know,
flurry of detritus and food.
And detritus collects there a lot.
Getting rid of that waste and that decaying matter
is one way to get rid of that decaying smell also.
- Yeah, this is one of those cases
where the sump is out of sight and out of mind,
but it isn't out of nose.
(Randy laughing)
All right, number four, change your filter socks on time,
meaning every few days,
because what's happening here
is it's collecting all that organic waste
and, worse yet, it's actually mixing it
in a high oxygen environment where it's rotting really fast.
This is where so much of the odor actually comes from
and often that green, you know, pet store smell
that comes out of it.
So filter socks.
Changing those out is actually one
of the most important steps to getting rid of it
if you're not gonna do anything else.
- Number five: if you're a gear junkie,
but you want 24/7 clean, clear, non smelling water,
try Ozone and Ozone generator dryer.
I mean, there's a lot of gear pieces in here
that tickles my inner gear junkie,
which is something that I would chase it down,
but also I don't have to change my carbon out,
like, every week or every two weeks.
The ozone is just there for me.
- Pristine, crystal clear water, no odor.
The whole thing will be a thing of the past.
And it's actually only just a small amount of ozone
going into your protein skimmer,
or even like a really cheap protein skimmer
that you put on the side just to be the reactor.
But ozone, one of the end game solutions
to pristine water quality.
Number six, just an air filter for the room.
Often the ones that have a carbon filter
on the sheet of the filter will work,
but also if it has an ion button on there, which is ozone.
So it will break up those particles in the air
and clean up the room.
So just an air filter in the room,
especially the ones with the ion button,
will actually solve the odor as well.
- Number seven: if you stir up your sand bed
and you see this brown poof come out,
that could be a source of the smell
of all the decaying matter and food and waste
that's in the sand bed.
The solution is to vacuum it occasionally,
sometimes not at all if you have a bare bottom,
'cause this isn't your problem,
but the sand bed does hold a lot of the detritus,
the broken down foods, big source of the nasty stink.
- If you're wondering if that's true,
go to the corner of your tank that gets the least flow,
scoop out a cup of the sand and give it a whiff.
You'll know for sure, this is a contributing factor.
Number eight: consider changing out your food.
Some of them absolutely stink more than other ones,
but most importantly,
if it's large and it takes a long time to break down,
it's probably part of that rotting pet store smell
that's in the tank as well.
So consider your food,
and changing it might be the solution.
- Number nine: on top of that, you can control your feeding.
Instead of just broadcast feeding some pellet food
and hoping your fish catch it
or broadcast feeding some mysis shrimp
and hoping that they catch it,
utilize tools like feeding rings
and, you know, these different feeding clips
and actually even feed modes on your return pumps
or your powerheads,
where it slows everything down,
it gives the fish more of a chance
to get that free-floating food, and then you're...
Less food guard going into the tank for waste
means less waste smell.
- So all that smell, a lot of it anyway,
is from that rotting organic matter.
So if I put half the stink in, half the stink will come out.
Number 10: consider the location
of your tank's fart machine, being that skimmer.
If it's underneath the stand,
you would think it might smell,
but actually it's just recirculating a lot of the air,
and it's kind of trapped under there.
A little bit might leak out,
but if you have, like, a fish room
and you have your external skimmer,
don't be surprised when it fills up the entire room
with that smell,
in which case, solutions like the carbon on the lid
being some of the best options.
So the question that we didn't answer is,
"What if your skimmer doesn't produce that fart smell?
What's going wrong with it?"
We actually have a "Problem Solvers" right here
on protein skimmers...
- And the carbon mistakes.
We've done more than 20 of them,
but we've got our top 20 you can find right here.