Sand Substrate question

[ccfishkeeper]

What is the best way to keep from those bad bubbles building up in the sand I keep hearing about?

I hate those small snails, just fought a snail infestation in gravel... tossed 30lbs of gravel in dumpster, am now snail free, save my gold mystery.

Right now, on back of tank I have a buried air rod and that bubbles up through the sand...looks pretty bad@ss behind my plants.

[Joetee]

Sorry, I don't understand your bubble question.
But I had a bad case of snails. 100's of them. They were in my shrimp tank so I couldn't add fish to eat them. So I just started everyday, using a long pair of tweezers, removing all the larger ones that I could see. The itsy bitsy ones I didn't fool with. My theory was to get them out before they had chance to reproduce.
It took a few months but now I am snail free. Not hard work, just patience. Some days I would have to remove about 40 of the darn things.
Joetee

[ccfishkeeper]

let me rephrase, what is the best way to stop sand substrate from going anaerobic besides snails.

[SchizotypalVamp]

Good gravel vaccing and occasional stirring with a chopstick.

[ccfishkeeper]

lmfao dude I actually was using a chopstick attached to a piece of dowel rod to get all places without removing my top and not getting wet lol

[glenngreen]

I doubt that you could make your sand anaerobic even if you wanted to. Having said that, there is no danger whatsoever from anaerobic conditions. The "H2S" bubbles you hear about are completely harmless and extremely rare. Anaerobes actuall help denitrification in that they break down Nitrates. Not enough to eliminate water changes, tho, unfortunately.

[James0816]

Dosing ferts question.

I'm only using Flrouish and DIY Co2 on the smaller tanks.

Should one be dosing more or using root tabs with lots of plants in sand substrate?

I never really gave much thought about that until I started changing over a larger tank.

[rich311k]

If you have rooted plants a tab or two would be a good idea.