We just bought a new 60 gallon aquarium and added the heater, filter, gravel, a few decorations, and air stone and started them up. Fish to be added in about a week. Came downstairs the next morning and there is a bad smell. Is this normal? How can we prevent it or will this go away by itself? Is there anything else we need to do prior to adding fish?
Take a cup of tap water and put it in a jar sniffing it to see if it has the same bad smell. If after 3-4 days it doesn't something icky is going on inside the tank. If it is the tank the gravel is the likely source. If that is the case start draining the tank while churning the gravel to remove what ever it is. I'd say you need to test the water in the tank and systematically do a 100% water change while keeping the gravel churning up. Also, don't know what you mean by decorations but you may want to pull them out and give them a sniff. Sometimes even pet store sold decorations aren't tank safe an leach chemicals into the water. If it smells like sulfur it is either in the water or coming from the basement floor drain.
After you get rid of the smell I strongly recommend using a product like Stability to cycle the tank quickly.
Some organics were probably in the wood, rock, or gravel, and are now being eaten by microbes. It will go away, and it will feed the microbes too, if you can tolerate it for a while.
I'm not sure that microbes could be breaking down organics overnight in a new tank. Could have been sewer gas, methane trapped in the water.
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