Hydrogen sulfide pocket. Am I in trouble?

mel_20_20

mel_20_20

AC Members
Sep 1, 2008
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Deep in the heart of texas
I have playsand in my 40 gallon breeder. I tried to make it 2 to 3 inches deep,and thought I did actually, but I'm thinking it's not much over 2 inches in the deepest areas. Some of it may be 3 inches deep.

I've been worrying about Hydrogen Sulfide and crawled up inside the cabinet to get a shot from underneath and saw the dreaded black areas.

I do see some runners from an area that has a good planting of Anachris, but the pocket is not right under the plants, but about 2 or 3 inches away from the plants. You can see some runners, but not many.

Am I about to have a noxious erruption of toxic gas? Should I evacuate the tank and clean it out? Here's a photo.

Under sand.jpg

I appreciate your assistance.

Under sand.jpg
 
I'm no expert, but I've had black spots in my sand before and stirred them up... nothing happened. I don't think you have anything to worry about. If you are really worried, get some MTS. Mine do a great job of stirring. Even with them, however, I still get black patches of sand underneath ornaments and such.
 
Thanks, Tekonus.
 
JUst stir. I stir about every other day anyway.
 
I just have those two that look bad, and another faint small one on the other side.
 
I did stir it the first month and a half I had it set up, but I thought that it was deep enough to allow a deep sandbed type of process so I haven't stirred it since some time around the end of October. I do vacuum the surface and stir it up a little on the top half inch or so.
 
Thanks, Jacki. Thanks Zpromoter and Tekonus. I feel so much better. I've been hanging my nose over the tank, sniffing for rotten egg smell, quite often, lol. So far I have never caught a wiff of anything like that, thank goodness.
 
i wouldn't go nuts stirring it up right now.
poke it with a pencil a few times here and there. i think if you just start stirring it up you're gonna release too much crap at once.
 
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