Hello,
Apologies in advance for the long write-up, but I would like to provide as much background information as possible.
For the longest time, I have experienced troubles with my 40B reef tank, particularly with my corals, in which they would go from months with beautiful growth and happiness to suddenly dropping dead. The worst was a couple months ago when I had to catch my aggressive angelfish and moved some rocks and disturbed the sand, which caused the entire tank to go into shock, and many corals immediately melted away. The same happened last night, in which I had to shift a rock to remove an anemone, which kicked up a lot of debris. Knowing that doing so would cause a problem, I was much more proactive with water changes and moving my sensitive corals into quarantine. Nonetheless, the 40B became cloudy and even the hardiest corals look ticked off. The ones I moved into my other tank are already recovering though.
This has been the case time and time again, in which even the slightest disturbance of the sandbed causes catastrophe, sometimes able to be mitigated, other times worse. As of recent, it almost always causes major issues. What is most strange is that the parameters before and after the incident remained nearly the same (at least the ones that I would be regularly testing). In the past, I’d always pegged the coral deaths as a parameter issue, but whenever I had moved corals to the much less suitable quarantine environment, they’d immediately open up and even look better than they had before.
I decided to do some research as to what could be in my sandbed that, when kicked up, could cause such an issue, and that led me to learn all about hydrogen sulfide in deep sand beds. I do believe that this could be what gets kicked up and causes trouble, as my water always smells foul afterwards and there exist black and smelly patches underneath the top layer of sand. While I’d love to move forward by simply not disturbing the sandbed at all, I know this can be unrealistic, as even my sandsifting fish could cause a problem.
Is there a long term solution to this buildup of H2S, and is there possibly a way to neutralize it so that it does not remain a standing issue? Are there other sandbed-related issues with a tank that I am not accounting for?
As of right now, the parameters read:
Mag: 1395 ppm
Alk: 10.5 dKH
Nitrate: 7.5 ppm
pH: 7.9
PO4: 1 ppm
Calc: 430 ppm
The phosphate level is probably due to me using my well water (which is crazy high in phosphate levels) during last night's 50% water change, as I was more concerned about pulling the potential toxins out than raising the PO4 (the RO water takes hours to replenish), so I've put fresh phosguard in to lower those levels.
Apologies in advance for the long write-up, but I would like to provide as much background information as possible.
For the longest time, I have experienced troubles with my 40B reef tank, particularly with my corals, in which they would go from months with beautiful growth and happiness to suddenly dropping dead. The worst was a couple months ago when I had to catch my aggressive angelfish and moved some rocks and disturbed the sand, which caused the entire tank to go into shock, and many corals immediately melted away. The same happened last night, in which I had to shift a rock to remove an anemone, which kicked up a lot of debris. Knowing that doing so would cause a problem, I was much more proactive with water changes and moving my sensitive corals into quarantine. Nonetheless, the 40B became cloudy and even the hardiest corals look ticked off. The ones I moved into my other tank are already recovering though.
This has been the case time and time again, in which even the slightest disturbance of the sandbed causes catastrophe, sometimes able to be mitigated, other times worse. As of recent, it almost always causes major issues. What is most strange is that the parameters before and after the incident remained nearly the same (at least the ones that I would be regularly testing). In the past, I’d always pegged the coral deaths as a parameter issue, but whenever I had moved corals to the much less suitable quarantine environment, they’d immediately open up and even look better than they had before.
I decided to do some research as to what could be in my sandbed that, when kicked up, could cause such an issue, and that led me to learn all about hydrogen sulfide in deep sand beds. I do believe that this could be what gets kicked up and causes trouble, as my water always smells foul afterwards and there exist black and smelly patches underneath the top layer of sand. While I’d love to move forward by simply not disturbing the sandbed at all, I know this can be unrealistic, as even my sandsifting fish could cause a problem.
Is there a long term solution to this buildup of H2S, and is there possibly a way to neutralize it so that it does not remain a standing issue? Are there other sandbed-related issues with a tank that I am not accounting for?
As of right now, the parameters read:
Mag: 1395 ppm
Alk: 10.5 dKH
Nitrate: 7.5 ppm
pH: 7.9
PO4: 1 ppm
Calc: 430 ppm
The phosphate level is probably due to me using my well water (which is crazy high in phosphate levels) during last night's 50% water change, as I was more concerned about pulling the potential toxins out than raising the PO4 (the RO water takes hours to replenish), so I've put fresh phosguard in to lower those levels.