Hi everyone. I have recently taken all the gravel out of my tank and replaced it with some river rocks. It looks great but the problem is that the water smells REALLY bad! I can smell it before I even get it it! Did I disrupt the ecology balance of the tank? It didn't smell like that before I made the change. I have been rinsing the filter pad and I did a partial water change this morning but am not sure exactly what I should be doing to help the problem. Will it eventually level out and be OK or should I do something different? Should I do frequent partial water changes? Please help as I love my goldies and want them happy and healthy. They seem fine and have no adverse effects so far.

not really sure whats going on, but if you could answer any of the red boxes on the disease and diagnosis forum, we can hopefully help you.

Did you take all the gravel out at one time? How long ago did you do this? You should have done this very slowly - over several weeks I beleive. I did mine all at one time, but I got lucky and didn't mess anything up. You have released all kinds of "yuck" out of the bottom and possibly crashed you cycle as a lot of the bio bugs live in the gravel. Also with changing the filter media you probably got rid of all the bio bugs. Keep you water tested, I would say your tank is going through a cycle.

I agree that the tank is going through a cycle. I did remove the gravel all at once. I should have known better. I just did this on 9/6/04. Should I put some of the gravel back in for now?

No don't put the gravel back. Just keep the water tested and make frequent water changes to keep the bad stuff down until it is cycled.