Anyone know about nitrogen bubbles in the sand bed?

Ok so I am posting this on behalf of fazoo666 and myself. I know he had two jawfish die and I had the one. Alll in the same way, suddenly and with no signs of disease. Only thing we noticed is that they were breathing heavily one day and then a few hours later, gone. All params check out fine...its just bizzare.

I was wondering about the possibility of nitrogen bubbles (as someone mentioned in another post) being caught in the DSB? We both have burrowing snails to help keep it stirred, but as far as i go i only have like 4 for a 28 gallon 3-4 inch sand bed. This is the only lead I've had on what could have killed them (burrowing, finds a nitrogen bubble, and poisons their gills). Anyone know anymore about bad things being trapped in a sand bed and how it affects burrowing fish? ANY information would be good, as I have only heard of this maybe twice and can't even remember where I heard it before.

I would really like to keep another one, but im wary until I know what happened to this one!

 

Remove 1/2 of what you call a DSB and if you insist on having one then add another inch or two .Remove all burrowing animals and get a sand bed fauna rejuvenation Kit asap. What you have right now is a mess not fish or foul .. you are to deep for a non DSB and to shallow to see any of the reported benefits of a true DSB .. I have yet to see any of them myself . I'd not have a DSB in my backyard let along a occupied tank. DSB's are a real snake and uless you know how to handle them it ill bite you and even expert like Bornerman lost his large system to one a couple of yrs back.. He has his story tale about what happend LOL

 

first stages of what? I dont understand what happened. I thought to have burrowing animals you were supposed to have a sand bed of at least 3 inches (which is what i have). I need to understand why it happened before i do anything so drastic.

 

basically that dsb's are a time bomb waiting to go off usually, they have their place in aquariua but personally I won't run a sand bed over 3"
If you have anything stirring a dsb it's asking for trouble, the idea of it is to keep all the bad stuff locked away in the sand bed until it's totally difused, the problem is if it gets stirred it gets shot back up into the water column and causes horrific nightmares, a aged DSB that gets stirred can easily wipe out an entire tank with no traces

 

Well 3" is not a sand bed who ever told you it was was wrong 4" level inches at the minimum and then you have to have the proper sand and size and so one . Not enough of the proper sand is where things start to fall apart over time with the gradual build-up of trapped waste, the bed basicialy starts to suffocate and turn bad with all that rotting waste which is in real danger of getting to the stage where Hydrogen Sulphide is released .. And I'd bet you have the Nitrogen confused with H2S gas ? what the burrowing anumals are eating are what you don't have enough of. Now is not the time to research a DSB not trying to sound rude but from what I have just read of your statements you have no clue what DSB is really .. you just have a mess waiting to happen. I have spoke so much abot a DSB's short comings I'm talked out .. I don't and would never use one ever again.. But I found this out many yrs ago .. they always wind up dead as will everything in the system. Good luck.

 

No, i guess i dont know what a DSB is, i just have a 3inch sand bed, whether or not its the same as a deep sand bed, i don't know. I was pretty sure 3 inches was a pretty standard bed size if you want to keep burrowing animals. And are you saying burrowing snails and starfish and such, are bad for the tank? I'm not exactly new to the hobby and in all my perusing of the web have not found such information. My sand bed may have been 4 inches to start, but they do degrade over time (or so i have read). Can anyone give me a link to a website where i might find helpful information or make me any less clueless? I remember researching how to make a proper sand bed when i was setting up my tank about 8 months ago and I did two layers of two different substrates. The first is a layer of the black marine substrate, not sure exactly what the measurements were. The second layer i used live reef sand ( a mixture of fine grained sand, crushed shell, and coral). Since i am more research savy than i was when i first setup, perhaps i did not research sand bed construction thoroughly enough.


And yes, i do need to know more about DSB, regardless. I dont really have time to go in and carve out my tank right now, have alot of exams this week. All i can do right now is be productive in my research.

 

oh and another question, if i remove an inch or two of sand, how do i do that if i have a burrowed anemone?, do i just keep that area the way it is. I dont really desire to have a DSB, and did not know there were consequences for a 3 inch bed. I was trying to construct a sand be suitable for a jawfish.

i am concerned that taking sand out will release more toxins, should i remove my fish and put them in the q tank while i do it? and then maybe do a water change?

 

i wouldn't remove sand if you only have a 3", a true DSB is 6"+ of sand