Neptune Aquatics

nasty sand

houser

houser

Past President
BARcard
Why does my SSB get so nasty? Nasty as in when I siphon out some sand it's nasty stinky. I'm actually removing it slowly to go back to BB in my 80 so this will be a moot point.

I have a shallow 1/2"-3/4" or so of oolite, moves around some, I'd get a pretty good biofilm going on top, some solidification/clumping but not too bad.

I have a ton of flow, a few stagnant areas though. If I had to characterize I'd say I'm a very light feeder.
I figure I get some sifting from the things in there, but nothing put in on purpose. Well I did add 3 nassarius snails, but I assume they're still in there.

I'm thinking the film on top is making a loose cap restricting water permeation?
I'm thinking that in my other tanks with larger grain sizes it wasn't an issue. Is it just the size of the oolite?
 
Funk is likely anaerobic digestion. Lots of ways to get there and if you aren't feeding much, I am thinking

1) too small of substrate (not familiar at all with oolite)
2) non-porous substrate (anaerobic digestion will occur in the substrate gaps rather than in the substrate pores_
3) need more sand detrovours.
4) ???

The biofilm on top may be an symptom and not a cause.
 
Small grain size, uniform, packs well. According to wikipedia it's 0.2 to 1.22 mm in diameter.

I had it in a sump once, planted heavily with caulerpa for about 2 yrs and no issues. That was a bed about 2 inches thick, and tons and tons of rhizomes working the first 25% or so, then the rest completely undisturbed. No stank when that one was torn down.

Perhaps since it moves around so much, the films get covered up and pushed down, and go anaerobic?

Anyway I'm ripping it out. I reserve the right to add back larger grain size in the future.
 
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