My tank is starting to smell like a swamp

Question
Hi,

This problem never happened until I did the below because of ICK that some of my black Mollys had.

My tank is about 3 months old and I had no problems because I changed the h2o every week to 10 days. Until my black mollys caught ICK. I was told by a few people here at allexperts.com that I should raise the temp to 85 and add non iodine salt 1 tbl per 5 gal and when I change the h2o replace the salt meaning if I remove 10 gal from my 20 gal tank I replaced 2 tbl salt back into the water. I also purchased the MARDEL coppersafe and placed it into the h2o for the ICK and added the quick start algae. Now my fish are doing great and all signs of the ICK are gone however the h2o smells terrible. I even changed 10 gal last night. The h2o is also a greenish color. I also have about 50 fry in the tank so I'm really afraid to change the h20 often or even stir the gravel because I may not see the fry and suck some of them out with the sediment in the gravel. What should I do?

Thank you
Rich

Answer
Hi Rich,
The best solution to a swampy-smelling aquarium is to increase your water changes for a while. Be sure to gravel vacuum thoroughly each time and try to remove about 30-50% of the water. You'll likely have to repeat these water changes for several days to get rid of the dirty water. Also, adding some carbon to your filter can really help remove odors and discolorations. But don't depend on it entirely, water changes are much better.

If the fry are several days old they should be strong enough to quickly swim away from the siphon as you vacuum the tank. But if you do siphon a fry up by mistake, it usually is unharmed and you can carefully net or scoop them out and return them to the main tank. It helps to drain the tank water into a light colored bucket to help you see any little fry that may have been trapped.

I really hope this helps!
Best of luck!
Karen~