I think I did a dumb thing . . .

[Caryliss]

Please help my sandbed! I added too much sand too quickly to an existing bed, and now I have hydrogen sulfide buildup.

I have a 10 month old, 75 g, sumpless tank; 70 lb live rock, 2 leathers, mushrooms, feather dusters, and 4 fish (juvenile ocellaris clown, royal gramma, scooter blenny, and flame hawk). Started with a 1 inch sandbed (on advice of LFS, knowledgeable about everything but sandbeds) composed of 10# of live sand (from established tank, not LIVE SAND unfortunately) and the rest aragonite. Nitrates have always been <5, but having read so much about DSB I decided to add some more "sugar fine" aragonite sand two weeks ago. Unfortunately I missed the part about adding it gradually. I now have large areas of gray sand, smelling of hydrogen sulfide, just below the surface. The pH has dropped to 8.0, and the leathers look a bit unhappy.

What should I do? Remove the sand and start over very gradually? Hurry up and order a detritivore/infauna kit or two? Just wait it out? I'm filtering with carbon and increasing the frequency of water changes right now.

Thank you for any help!

Carole

[rshimek]

Originally posted by Caryliss

Hi Carole,


To Reef Central

What should I do? Remove the sand and start over very gradually?

Yes. I would remove the bed completely and re-install it as if you were starting from scratch. See the post about sand beds above, follow the link and read the article for the basics.

Unfortunately, drastic problems require drastic solutions. It is possible your bed would improve gradually on its own, but it may not and if it doesn't, it would continue to cause problems for a long time to come.

Good luck!

[Caryliss]

Thank you very much for the advice!

Carole