Tank smells funky ?

Kilimodo

New member
Hello reprilian friends!
I hope you are all having a great week.
I come to you for advice about a recurent funky smell i have in my auriculatus's tank (planted, cleaning crew, and home made backround)
Now I know that is normal to have some earthy smells, but this one is more of a musky cream cheese smell :confused: .. I may be exageratîng ^^
Has any one been through this type of encounter ?
My first guess was the leaf litter degradîng and microbes letting of this? But my other tanks do not have this. I will put in place a small computer fan in order to accelerate the air flow and thus maybe let the substrat dry out from time to time. (It has a fals bottom wich never ever has water drippîng down) so wouldnt be due to stagnante water in the bottom.
I really think it might be the leafs (magnolia and liquidambar mix, that I pre boiled etc)

Was not sure where to post this thread so doing it in the cattegory where my geckos are, but oppen to all keepers that might have an idea about the subject.
Thank you all for the time given to my question! :)
 

acpart

Active member
Maybe you should experiment by taking some of the substrate (with the leaves) out and keeping it in a separate place for awhile to see if what you took out continues to smell. You could also try to figure out where the gecko is pooping and see if that's what's smelling.

Aliza
 

Yoshi'smom

New member
I agree with Aliza. that might help to see where the smell may be coming from.
No change in diet/feeders?
Maybe a bad batch of leaves?
I just recently switched my crested, gargoyle and leachianus over to bio active and have minimal experience.
But hopefully we can get to the bottom of the funky smell.
Keep us updated.
 

Kilimodo

New member
Hi everyone!
Thanks for the suggestions, i'll try that to see if the leaves are emmitting the smell, but I used the same procedures for the rest of the tanks and did not notice it at all ?
Following my post I did some modifications and and cut a bit of the plants that were blockîng a lot of light from getting to the floor, and noticed that the smell is dissipatîng slowly, I also give less of misting on the groûnd so hopefully it will clear soôn.
And no there has not been any changes in the feedîng, although I have noticed that my woodlice population has dropped quite a bit (and I strongly suspect Pixie the auri of hunting them dow) mostly the big European woodlice (that tend to live in the corck hollows) and have opted for the tropical ones wich are way smaller (they were allready part of the original clean crew but never to bee seen ?) so i added some more.
Orherwise springtails are thrivîng (maybe a bit too much ^^)
I'll keep you posted but in a week the smell has really dropped consideratly! Wich by the way is more of a strong musky smell then disgustîng rottîng smell.
Ahh nice [MENTION=18330]yoshi[/MENTION]'s mom! You will have much fun once youre eco system is up and running ! Low maintenance, I do not see any poop left (except the one on the leaves sometimes) wich with a small mist go feed the crew down bellow. Next step is finding a few appropriate worms for aeration in the substrate.
Anyways thanks a lot for the response ! Allways eager (when time permitts) to log in to geckosunlimited and readîng from all of you !!
Have a great day :)
Kilian
 
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