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Thread: sulfur smell

  1. #1

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    sulfur smell

    Hey guys. just wanted to throw this out there to see if anybody has ever had this on a scrubbed system. About once per day around noon my reef aquarium will give off a sulfur smell for a few hours. I started noticing this After I installed a 13 watt UV in my sump about a month ago. The UV and scrubber are the ONLY filtration. The UV was installed to help cut down on glass cleaning and it has worked wonders for that,,the scrubber takes care of the rest! My tank and creatures inside are all thriving! But once per day the room gets a little smelly

  2. #2

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    The sulfur smell is a byproduct of waste in your system. The UV light kills things in your water column. Dead stuff accumulates in the sump or other places if you don't have enough circulation. Bacteria there in turn causes the smell. The UV is fighting this accumulation by sterilizing the water column.

    People use UV light to fight sulfur smell. Somehow your system is not getting all of the bacteria that causes it or there is accumulation of gas somewhere that builds up and bubbles out every once in a while.

  3. #3
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    Just taking a guess here, but I would guess it is actually the UV causing the problems. By 'sterilizing' the water all it is doing is killing anything living that passes through it, so instead of live bacteria, copepods, etc that would normally be alive and help filter the water, they are now dead and rotting. Why it only happens at a certain time I have no idea but I am sure it is something to do with the display light schedule corresponding with some type of growth/non growth phase during the day. I would think having a skimmer right after the UV would be beneficial for helping this problem, but I never ran a UV sterilizer because of the issues I mentioned, so I am just guessing.

  4. #4

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    yea guys that is what I was thinking..somehow the uv is killing/altering the natural balance of the tank and its microfauna. now the question is do I let it find a "new balance" or do I D/C the uv and go back to lots of glass cleaning??

  5. #5
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    If you increase the scrubbing power, I've seen glass go 2 weeks.

  6. #6
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    I've gone longer without cleaning glass - up to a month

  7. #7

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    with my scrubber I only need to clean glass about every week and a half. And then it is just a quick swipe with the magnet cleaner.

    Still fighting algae on rocks and so on as the scrubber matures.

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