Smelly fish tank

[Paul Sheahan]

We have a small 20ltr (about 5 gal) cold water tank for two small gold fish.
It is in my daughters room and she constantly changes the water (once a
week) but just up to that time it smells awful ! She is trying to avoid a
filter because of the noise but then on the other hand I suppose she could
just run it during the times she is not sleeping. Has anyone got any advise.
Thanks Paul

[Gunther]

In article >,
says...
>
>
> We have a small 20ltr (about 5 gal) cold water tank for two small gold fish.
> It is in my daughters room and she constantly changes the water (once a
> week) but just up to that time it smells awful ! She is trying to avoid a
> filter because of the noise but then on the other hand I suppose she could
> just run it during the times she is not sleeping. Has anyone got any advise.
> Thanks Paul

My advice is for her to get used to the noise and get a filter.
And a bigger tank. With two goldfish in 25-30L and no filtration,
a bad odor is probably guaranteed.

I suggest reading something like
http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/4468/common_questions.html
to make sure you and your daughter understand what's going on.

G

[Mick Manford]

You can get exceptionally quiet filters you know. You might be
thinking of one of those airpump driven little things that sat in the
corner of 1970s tanks (doing very little).

Things have moved on. There are lots of filters making very little
noise.

[LoaderLady]

I have 2 - 5g tanks as well (no gf in them, only plants, but plan to add
guppies later). I have a small filter called a "Whisper" in each of them.
It is a power filter which hangs inside the tank (looks alot like a
canister, but on inside). I use quilt batting inside the filter to clean
the water, wrapped around a little gravel in a piece of stocking for housing
bio-bugs (helps cut down on ammonia which the fish produce). The filters
are practically silent when the tank is filled to the brim of the filter.
If the water has to trickle/fall out of the filter, it does make noise, but
not if it just flows out. Other filters, such as AquaClear are quite silent
as well.

Even with a filter, us fishy people clean our tanks every week, but not
completely. We do weekly changes of 25% of the water, sometimes more. If
your daughter is changing all the water, she is dumping out the good things
with the bad... The smell may be going, but so are the "good" bio-bugs
which are needed to produce a good, healthy tank. I would suggest that you
get a quiet filter, and do water changes of 50% or so at first, about every
2 or 3 days until the filter begins to house good bacteria. Then you can go
back to weekly partial changes.

If the budget allows, also get an ammonia test kit, and use it daily.
Change your water by at least 50% when the readings are above 0 (possibly
daily as well). This will also help to save your fish. But the filter
should help to eliminate the smell, which is probably ammonia - something
which would be removed by the bio-bugs.

Good luck

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"Paul Sheahan" > wrote in message
u...
>
>
> We have a small 20ltr (about 5 gal) cold water tank for two small gold
fish.
> It is in my daughters room and she constantly changes the water (once a
> week) but just up to that time it smells awful ! She is trying to avoid a
> filter because of the noise but then on the other hand I suppose she could
> just run it during the times she is not sleeping. Has anyone got any
advise.
> Thanks Paul
>
>