Hi all,
What
@Edvet says.It depends a little bit what the smell is, if it is a wet pond smell it may be cyanobacteria, if its <"
wet earth after its rained?"> that is probably a good sign. If it has a hint of wet nappies? then it is ammonia.
Our noses can only sense ammonia when it gets to 2 or 3 ppm, so if it is "
wet nappies"? Definitely time for some more water changes.
At the moment your air bubbles are acting like a protein skimmer, as the bubbles decline you know you have less surface scum.Yes you do. I don't personally test for ammonia or nitrites, you can, but I follow another approach where you just let the plants grow in. Once you have active healthy plant growth then your tank is "cycled".
That is partially why I like floating plants, they always have access to aerial CO2 and oxygen, which means that they can deal with a lot of ammonia. I'd keep an eye on your Duckweed (
Lemna minor), all the time it is growing really quickly and is a dark green, you probably still have plenty of ammonia being released. Once the growth slows then that is a pretty good indicator that a more stable situation is being reached.
Duckweed doesn't like low nutrients, or really soft water, which is why I now use Amazon Frogbit for the <"
Duckweed index">. If you got time read through all of the links in <"
Corydoras in hard water">, it is quite a useful thread.
I know I've just used it, but I don't particularly like the term <
"cycled">, it suggests that there is a switch between black and white, unsafe and safe, but it is very much more <"
a shades of grey world">.
cheers Darrel