Smell of nitrites

"Mean_Chlorine" wrote in message
...
Thusly "NetMax" Spake Unto All:

Does anyone know the characteristics of the source of this smell? Does
it
take long to leave the water, and is the water left harmless after?

Hydrogen sulphide is weakly toxic, and smells like, well, like
someone's farted. It's said to smell like rotten eggs, but to me it
smells like fart. Anyway, it's a completely different smell than the
sharp, putrid, smell of ammonia & mercaptans you get in aquaria which
are cycling, and there's no risk of confusing those two smells.

However are these sulphide gases the same
as what cause the sulphur smell in well water?

Probably, yes. Fortunately you can smell hydrogen sulphide at levels
much lower than they're lethal to fish, and water changes helps.

This link might be of interest to you:
http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/agdex1160?opendocument

Incidentally, it seems crustaceans are far more sensitive to hydrogen
sulphide than fish.


Yes, thanks, very helpful. I do periodically shock the well (but
it's -18C right now and the well cap is under much ice & snow ;~).
Discounting their hydrogen peroxide, potassium permanganate, chlorine,
ozone and bleach treatments, they talk about aeration, and make mention
of an iron reducing valve having variable effectiveness (improves as the
water is more acidic). I'm a little more comfortable knowing aeration
will have a significant effect, so I'll stick with a routine of aging the
water for a week, and see how it goes.

OT, regarding Ja b riol in the ' AråchñÕe¤ thread ', these persons are
fully capable, willing and planning to bring significant havoc to rafm.
Rec.ponds is a wreck and alt.aquaria is currently being overwhelmed. If
nothing changes, we will be their next target, and our options are
limited. I don't know about you, but I'm rather fond of rafm and have
enjoyed many interesting discussions here. When I can repeat
conversations to friends, from the newsgroup, then I know the group is
part of my life (social, entertainment and academic too).

If they choose to snow us under 100s of robo-generated posts, they will
regardless. If they want to intimidate me, then they now have a very big
target with over 10,000 mostly boring posts from which to gather
information from (they'll know more about my tanks than I'll remember
;~). fwiw, I'll take your advice if the exchange is fruitless, but
regardless of the outcome, it was worth asking them to stop... the cause
justifies the effort, eh?

Thanks again for the link.
cheers
--
www.NetMax.tk