I have a cycled 10 gallon tank with 1 betta and 2 mystery snails. I have your run of the mill store bought (clown puke) gravel as the substrate, 3 little live plants. I'm running a "Lee's Triple Flow" corner air-driven filter. Water parameters stay at: 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 10-20 nitrate, pH is 7.4.
I do a 50% water change twice a week (maybe more often than is needed, but it helps with the smell). I vacuum the gravel each time, and I can assure you the gravel is clean. There are no trapped pockets of nasty. I don't overfeed - betta gets 2-3 little pellets in the morning and 1-2 pellets or a dab of frozen brine shrimp in the evening. Snails eat the algae and sometimes a Ken's veggie stick or fresh vegs. None of the plants are rotting. There are no dead creatures in the tank. I have wiped the rim and hood each time I do a water change.
But the tank smells. It's not really sulphur/rotten egg but that's maybe the closest thing I could equate it to. But it's definitely NOT really a sulpher smell - I took a lot of chem classes and have smelled the real deal and it's not that.
You may say it's inadequate filtration from the unorthodox filter, but I had this same problem before I switched filters. I use Eheim lav and filter floss in the filter - which gets swished clean once a month. I have been thinking of putting some carbon in there. I suppose it can't hurt anything. But I know that won't solve the problem, only mask it. Anyone have any ideas? I have another 5G betta/1 snail tank with no smell and another 4G at my work with a betta and a nerite with also no smell. I don't do anything different in the smelly tank than the non-ones. The only actual difference is that I have Caribsea pebbles as substrate in the 2 non-smellers instead of colored gravel. I use the same filter media in all 3 tanks, same cleaning schedule, same food and feeding regimen. I have no problem with switching out the gravel if necessary, but I don't know how that could be the problem.
I do a 50% water change twice a week (maybe more often than is needed, but it helps with the smell). I vacuum the gravel each time, and I can assure you the gravel is clean. There are no trapped pockets of nasty. I don't overfeed - betta gets 2-3 little pellets in the morning and 1-2 pellets or a dab of frozen brine shrimp in the evening. Snails eat the algae and sometimes a Ken's veggie stick or fresh vegs. None of the plants are rotting. There are no dead creatures in the tank. I have wiped the rim and hood each time I do a water change.
But the tank smells. It's not really sulphur/rotten egg but that's maybe the closest thing I could equate it to. But it's definitely NOT really a sulpher smell - I took a lot of chem classes and have smelled the real deal and it's not that.
You may say it's inadequate filtration from the unorthodox filter, but I had this same problem before I switched filters. I use Eheim lav and filter floss in the filter - which gets swished clean once a month. I have been thinking of putting some carbon in there. I suppose it can't hurt anything. But I know that won't solve the problem, only mask it. Anyone have any ideas? I have another 5G betta/1 snail tank with no smell and another 4G at my work with a betta and a nerite with also no smell. I don't do anything different in the smelly tank than the non-ones. The only actual difference is that I have Caribsea pebbles as substrate in the 2 non-smellers instead of colored gravel. I use the same filter media in all 3 tanks, same cleaning schedule, same food and feeding regimen. I have no problem with switching out the gravel if necessary, but I don't know how that could be the problem.
