Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help water that smells bad

AatW - You probably have a planktonic algae bloom. "Odor of something alive" is not a very accurate or descriptive term. My girlfriend has quite a different odor than flowers, the dog, dead fish or a pig farm.

Your water treatment sand filter is to remove a lot of the larger suspended solids. If you are not measuring or detecting chlorine in your finish water (tap) then it is likely being bound, converted or dissipated somewhere between the retention tank (50g settling tank) and the distribution line. Chlorine ions can get bound and converted to other complex chemicals when exposed to dissolved organic substances. This is likey to occur in the sand filter where large amounts of particulates accumulate. Manganese green sand filters are designed to primarily remove one form of iron in the water. Charcoal filters can remove some chlorine by-products. If I drank this water I would have a reverse osmosis filter on the drinking water tap due to the production of potentially harmful chlorine by products.