Hydrogen sulfide build up in sand

Just wanted to give a heads up for those with deep sand beds and risk of hydrogen sulfide build up.

Earlier this week i decided to toss all the sand from my broken tank.........i had about 150lbs of sand in a couple buckets with saltwater and my original plan was to clean all the sand out and reuse it. 8 weeks later i decided to get new sand if/when the tank goes back up (not looking so good now as we have not had time to do anything since it happened)

anyway i was noticing this black discoloration on the top of the sand in areas and i thought mold was forming. So monday i borrowed a dolly and caried the sand to the dumpsters. One of the buckets fell off the dolly on my porch and half the sand dumped out.....i almost lost my lunch because of the "rotten egg" smell. The sand was black all the way through.

I have had one other incident with hydrogen sulfide build up and am going to have one more very soon.......when i had my tank fire a couple years ago, i did not drain my chiller. When the new tank came in i went to hook up the chiller and water spilled out and hydrogen sulfide gas came out....this time i did throw up and felt very very sick. I am going to have the same issue this time as i did not drain the chiller :-x

anyway, thought i would share this, as i am curious how people with deep sand bed handle this issue. If that much built up in 8 weeks what happens to an established tank...i would think it would be leached out in the tank with bubbles and would kill everything

 

That's not good. I have 180lbs in 3 buckets that have been sitting for 4 weeks now. I don't want to open them now. Nothing worse than rotten eggs.

 

yeah........mine was open to air at least! Be careful because hydrogen sulfide can be poisonous!

 

that s one of hte reasons DSB are not a good idea in my opinion. I will never do a DSB because of this risk

 

i have noticed air bubbles trapped between the sand and the glass that are released to the surface when my diamond goby sifts. is that what those air bubbles are?

 

Nah.... thats probably nitrogen where the bacteria have consumed the nitrates...

 

ah, thanks.

 

its wierd, H2S is something i was always worried about with my plenum. When i took it out after 5 years its was fine, i still threw out the sand lol.

 

This is the biggest reason many of us flat out say to get new sand rather than rinse and reuse.

when you get ready to empty the chiller a 100' extension cord and an outside outlet are your friends

 

+1 on that. One inch (or so) of sand is enough for me.