Marine Snow: Does it stink like rotten eggs?

[Anonymous]

Yesterday I picked up a bottle of this "Marine Snow" by twolittlefishes.

It smells soooooo bad! I'm wondering if it's rotten or gone bad because it smells like rotten eggs, hydrogen sulfide and stink bombs! PEEWWWW! It's not just a faint odour, it's really strong!

Is it supposed to smell like this?!

-Nathan

 

[Anonymous]

lol, not sure about the smell of marine snow, but do know Coral Heaven "stinks" too.

 

[Anonymous]

Hahaha. If only I had this stuff when I was a naughty kid! I'd have made so many stinkbombs!

hahha

-Nathan

(Just kidding. I'm really a nice quiet guy.

)

 

[Anonymous]

sorry i don't know but please post if or what you find out brandon

 

[Anonymous]

I e-mailed "twolittlefishes" and asked them.

Here is their reply:


--------------------------------
Dear Nathan,

Thank you for your message. You definitely have a bad bottle of MarineSnow.
Please throw it away. Please tell me your correct mailing address and I
will send you a replacement bottle immediately.

Sincerely,

Julian Sprung

-------------------------

That solves that!

-Nathan

 

[Anonymous]

Umm... not really.

I also smelled this product when it first hit my local wholesaler over two months ago and it also smelled spoiled. It sounds like there is a problem here. OTOH, I also smelled a bottle at a LFS to test it again, and it wasn't as bad. I would think that some further product development is in order here. I'm sure not everyone would actually smell the product before adding it to their tank, and it might cause a problem. I can just imagine when Summer hits and the temps are 100 degrees in all the warehouses where this stuff is distributed from...

Later,

Brad

 

[Anonymous]

Here's another revealing e-mail from Julian Sprung of Two Little Fishes:

--------------------------
Dear Nathan,

Thanks for the info. We are sending you a replacement bottle. I'm sure that
the spoilage is not a fault of [your LFS]. I'm simply tracing the
source. One batch had a type of phytoplankton that was prone to spoiling,
and I want to confirm your bottle was from that batch. We caught and
corrected the problem. Your new batch will have a quite different aroma!

Sincerely,

Julian Sprung, Vice President
Two Little Fishies, Inc.

---------------------------

-Nathan

 

[Anonymous]

I have noticed that my buddy who uses the stuff (and loves it, BTW) seems to get a bad bottle every now and then, suggesting a possible storage or development problem as Brad Ward observed. Also, I've noticed a definite color change in the product from green to brown when the bottle has gone bad.
-Steve

 

[Anonymous]

Just wanted to let you guys no that the reason it smells bad is all the live "phytoplankton" is dead. Nothing and I mean NOTHING can live in a little bottle. No "marine snow" or anything else contains "live" anything. The reason one bottle tends to smell worse then the other is longer decay time. Imagine how bad a body would smell in a closet after a week. Now imagine two months. I don't know what the claims are for marine snow, but I have purchaced phytoplankton in a bottle before from Kent. Thereotically (sp?) the only thing it could do would be to feed smaller organisms and growing phyto's etc. already in your tank, the bottle stuff acting as food.

 

[Anonymous]

It's not suppose to smell like rotten egg's I use it all the time.

 

[Anonymous]

I stopped using DT's and tried this solely, for a while. The result was a large scale die-off of my filter feeders (sponges, tunicates, etc.). I'm not convinced of its effectiveness and have gone back to DT's.

 

[Anonymous]

I use a combo of DT's and Marine Snow, mine is green and does not smell. I keep both refrigerated. I also feed Tahitian Blend cryopaste and Golden Pearls, Formula one, fresh fish and Nori. I vary the diet for my tank. After reading the many posts on this subject it appears that the Marine Snow does not have much of a following. I did have a chili coral open after I began feeding the Marine Snow. I plan on finishing the bottle and not replacing it as a food source for my tank and I'll see what happens in the tank. One thing for sure, it has not had an adverse affect on my tank, but I'm not sure it has improved much. I'm hoping the sand bed is slowly building and with the magnifier it appears to be.

 

[Anonymous]

Some interesting comments from Rob Toonen on Marine Snow can be found at: http://www.aqualink-too.com/ubb/Forum11/HTML/000073.html

Troy