Live Rock

[Mania25]

I've recently bought a tank off a friend and set it up with his old water and all his live rock. I've now noticed that the live rock has a horrible strong fishy smell to it. Does anyone know why this is?
My other tank just smells like ocean but this smells like dead fish. Parameters are fine. Mostly at zero apart from nitrate at 15 which I'm not too worried about.
Will this smell go away? It's been two weeks now.

 

[DaveK]

When you move a tank, especially a long established one, and there is a lot of various things growing on the live rock, there usually will be some die off. This is what is most likely making the fishy smell. As long as you have most of the bacteria intact, you may not see an ammonia spike.

To speed things up, I'd use a powerhead to blow out the live rock, and then do a partial water change. Additional circulation may help also.

With time and some water changes, you should be fine.

 

[Mania25]

Ok thanks for the response. I'll leave it then and see how I get on. I'll keep an eye on the ammonia

 

[Oxylebius]

Agree with DaveK - I'd blow off the rocks and do a couple of water changes over the next couple of days. This should do the job moving the process forward to get the tank from smelling like decay.

 

[Mania25]

Ok thanks. It's been about two weeks now. I'll keep doing water changes. No ammonia spikes and there's already livestock in there as I bought his set up.