Yucky live sand

[EmilyB]

I tried to keep the live sand from the 15g in a critter keeper in my sump, since Ed wasn't ready to set up the tank right away.

It had good flow, right by the skimmer return, and a few nass, etc in there. My first real experience with the stinky black....eeeeeewwwwwww. I saw it going black in the last four inches or so. So I pulled it and threw it into a 10g just to see if I could save it.

I think the Sewer department has been calling me....lol.

I went over to the 155g and sucked up a bunch of four year old sand. No smell, and surprisingly enough, no dirt to speak of.

It still has worms alive etc. but I am shutting it down unless Ed comes to get it...

[EmilyB]

Actually, I wanted to try and stir up the topic of black H2S0 in live sand, as I have never really experienced it before.

I have purchased tanks with some sand, that curiously had black on the bottom of a few rocks. That always went away with added circulation and filtration. Or maybe added life forms, I don't know.

In the past, when I have talked about transferring sand beds.......no way would I have have done this with a foul smelling rank sandbed.

[ed99]

I think I'll pass on the noxious black sludge! I don't have any experience with DSBs- is what's happening different than what happens in the anaerobic zone of a DSB?

[EmilyB]

I will pass it along slowly into a healthy system, and give you some healthy scoops for sure ! It's just odd, the first really "deep" situation goes that way....