# Questions about scents of Reefs



## ionix (Oct 11, 2012)

Hey, I have a few questions about the scent of your water and live rock.

I recently just filled up my 40g with more rock (10lbs at first, then I added 20lbs and another 10lbs in a week), and am using a skimmer and all that jazz but am curious at the new scent.

It smells super funky. Incidentally, it is odd enough that I had to go out for another whiff to be able to describe it. 

It smells like a light swamp. It is very odd. It is also what I imagine fish farts would smell like.

My original tank (20g), has no scent at all. It is completely devoid of any scent. Very healthy, as displayed by the inhabitants.



So my questions are these:

1) What does your tank smell like (or does it have a scent)?

2) Why might my tank smell like that? Is it good or bad, or just something that occurs? 

3) This live rock was cured in a tank, has hundreds of polyps and etc. Improbable survival if mostly uncured in a live rock stocked tank (90% of the tank is filled with it) correct? No skimmer that I remember.

4) When I put the live rock in, my other coral just seemingly died inside while others (which are healthy too) did not have a reaction. Why for? Any ideas? Most of the new stuff just opened up all happy and what not.


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## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

#1- My tank smells like the ocean. When I went to San Diego, I now had a scent I could destinguish.
#2- Sounds as if you may have some die off in there somewhere.
#3- If you put Cured Rock into a tank with Uncured Rock, that lil life on the Cured is pretty hardy stuff, you may get most of it to live through a cycle.
#4- Sounds like that Rock wasn't Fully Cured but close. Coulda just shocked the other corals that were barely hanging on, and they died off.


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## ionix (Oct 11, 2012)

Reefing Madness said:


> #1- My tank smells like the ocean. When I went to San Diego, I now had a scent I could destinguish.
> #2- Sounds as if you may have some die off in there somewhere.
> #3- If you put Cured Rock into a tank with Uncured Rock, that lil life on the Cured is pretty hardy stuff, you may get most of it to live through a cycle.
> #4- Sounds like that Rock wasn't Fully Cured but close. Coulda just shocked the other corals that were barely hanging on, and they died off.


Interesting. I can understand that. It was a fine balance, and I made a faux pas. Future reference for myself.. I will "re-cure" any future rock I am going to use. 

So.. What do you do with dead coral? Just break the LR and toss it, in a few days if it doesn't recoup? I am hopeful, but let me know with what you'd do at this point please.

Well, I guess it kindof sounds better the way you put it. but now I am face-palming at my retardation. It was uncured (which I thought it was fully, with a tiny bit of die off, but I'll be able to prevent that with just recuring everything to make sure) to a cured live rock tank (with 10-15lbs/40lbs+). 

Thank you by the way bud


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## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

No problem man. If your going to use Rocks of any kind, unless fully cured, and your positive it is, then you should only throw a few lbs in at a time, this will keep the tank from having any kind of bloom. I've done it many times adding rock, but only a bit at a time, and in a 240g tank, I can add much more than you guys can with the smaller ones. Also with the right size skimmer, one rated for twice your water volume, that baby will eat up much of the bloom and garbage that will come from the rocks.


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## ionix (Oct 11, 2012)

Reefing Madness said:


> No problem man. If your going to use Rocks of any kind, unless fully cured, and your positive it is, then you should only throw a few lbs in at a time, this will keep the tank from having any kind of bloom. I've done it many times adding rock, but only a bit at a time, and in a 240g tank, I can add much more than you guys can with the smaller ones. Also with the right size skimmer, one rated for twice your water volume, that baby will eat up much of the bloom and garbage that will come from the rocks.


Awesome. Something like the Coralife 125 for the 40g probably is what im going to go for. So I can upgrade to 80g when I need too.

It is absolutely true when you point out that it wouldn't be able to do much but maybe 5lbs at a time in a 40g? future ref.

On that note, I am off to clean up my sump and hopefully start that up today. Then off to gouge my bank account for the skimmer lmao.

P.S. I ordered the Octopus from my LFS, and I never heard back from them. Though in the end, coralife works.


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## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

Yea we can make the Coralife run like the big boys, just need a couple of mods to it, and it will work great.
Yea, I'd say 5lbs at a time to the tank should keep you from trouble.


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## Reefing Madness (Aug 12, 2011)

Ok, so here is the Link to the Coralife Modifications, but not all of them. I just played around with some mesh and turned my pump into a Mesh Impeller Pump. Man this stuff works like the PRO PUMPS!!! This you definately have to do if your getting a Coralife.
Modifing the Coralife Super Skimmer CSS | Tyler Merrick

Mesh MOD: DA BOMB!!!








Link to Mesh.
Mesh PF4 Enkamat Skimmer Enchancement | eBay


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