I did a 50% h2o change last night on a 29 gal biocube w/ 2 discus.This morning the sulfur smell was horrible.?

Question

I used reverse osmosis water and added amquel plus and novaqua. I used one ounce per gallon as opposed to one ounce for 60 gallons. My local fish store says I have anaerobic decomposition and I find that hard to believe. I have very little gravel and the tank is very well aerated. The tank was cycled for 4 weeks with 5 neon tetras and the discus were only in the tank for one week. Did I overdose on the meds? There was absolutely NO sulfur smell before the water change. The biocube has 3 levels of filtration (sponge, carbon, and bio-balls). Help??

Answer 1

first of all your two discus need a 55 gallon tank. Secondly, you overdosed your discus with the amquel, the directions are there so you know how much to use. Third, only do a 20 % water change once a week. Discus are very sensitive to water quality issues and will probably die from the od of amquel. Next time, follow the directions.

Answer 2

Too much Amquel+ will give you that (ugh) lovely sulfur smell. It also will do some weird things to your (new) water quality. Make sure you only add exactly what the bottle advises and not any more (I switched from Amquel+ to Prime simply because the Amquel+ was killing everything in all my tanks since I didn't need huge quantities of water all at once and it was hard to make sure only 6 drops went into each gallon of water). I'd do another water change using less Amquel+ (unless your water usually has a lot of metals in it, you probably don't even need the Novaqua, I haven't use that in years). Also, if you're using RO water, you're going to have to add the minerals back in so the living things in the tank remain healthy--they need minerals just as we do and RO removes them all.

Answer 3

So, you used 29 ounces of Amquel in there, and you are wondering what the smell is? Thats a good one... You should have added half of an ounce, so you basically have about 60 times more than the recommended dosage, my friend... I would kiss those Discus goodbye, they are sensitive fish as it is...

Answer 4

Yea bad idea, way too much Amquel and you shouldn't do 50% water change in one night. Do progressive water changes. I would suggest no more then 15% at a time, specially if you don't have good water quality.

Answer 5

Get your water tested, if your readings are high then yes, it sounds like excess decomposition. Check your chambers too and make sure nothing's stuck between the media.
Discus probably also poo alot more than neons..if everything checks out I would buy some bacteria starter stuff and give it some time, maybe a week, and get your water tested again.