Hydrogen Sulfide issue! HELP!

Discussion in 'ASAP' started by PRETZ3L5, Apr 3, 2013.

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  1. PRETZ3L5

    PRETZ3L5 Astrea Snail

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    hey 3 reef, i had my 13 year old sister doing a water change yesterday and she sucked up a lot of sand from my deep sand bed in my refugium. I woke up this morning and my tank had completely crashed! almost all my corals are dying and 2 of my fish are dead (the others in bad shape). I'm suspecting its hydrogen sulfide that was trapped in my deep sand bed but will a water change fix this? I need HELP ASAP!
    Elliott :bigcry:
     
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  3. Corailline

    Corailline Super Moderator

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    It is a dry heat, yeah right !
    I am sorry Elliot.

    The only solution that I have heard that works is removing the corals and fish, acclimate them to new water and a separate container.

    This happened to a friend of mine and she ended up continuing to loose inhabitants regardless of large water changes.

    Hopefully someone else has first hand experience and can offer a better solution.
     
  4. PRETZ3L5

    PRETZ3L5 Astrea Snail

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    did she end up moving back into the main tank ever? or did she have to drain the whole thing? :-/
     
  5. Robman

    Robman Great White Shark

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    Was the sand black and smelled horrible?
     
  6. PRETZ3L5

    PRETZ3L5 Astrea Snail

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    didn't notice too much of a smell, but no black sand.. some weird layer of refuse or something on the bed though, it was under cheato the whole time so it rarely saw any light. it was about 4'' deep
     
  7. Corailline

    Corailline Super Moderator

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    It is a dry heat, yeah right !
    She eventually after trying to save everything in the main display moved what was left still alive, drained the tank and removed the sand.

    Those are drastic measures so I would wait until someone that has experienced the same problem addresses it.
     
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  9. PRETZ3L5

    PRETZ3L5 Astrea Snail

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    Alright, sounds good. Thanks for your help!
     
  10. sanchoy

    sanchoy Astrea Snail

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    in this hobby:

    A wise man learns from his mistakes, but a wiser man learns from other peoples mistake.

    -You should never have your 13 year old sister perform water changes for you. Not even assist. I dont trust anybody unless they are also seasoned in the hobby to get close to my tank as far as maintenance.

    -What you can do is a large water change, set up carbon. and hope for the best.
     
  11. PghSteeler

    PghSteeler Tassled File Fish

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    Nobody does anything but feed my fish, and even that is either with me there or with my premeasured medacine cups of food. Not even my wife, love her to death but she even admitted if I were to die she wouldnt know where to start to keep thigns alive lol.

    On another note, I doubt it is hydrogen sulfide. I read a very interesting article, I believe it was in Coral but do not recall, about DSB and the hydrogen sulfide time bombs. Scientifically the only way a hydrogen sulfide bubble would kill your fish or inverts would be if there were captured in the bubble as it rose to the surface as it is not soluable in water and quickly bubbled to the surface to get released into the air. Any hydrogen sulfide that remains in the water gets broken down to another harmless chemical of which I can not recall and the hydrogen sulfide that was released into the air will stink your house soo bad you wont be able to stand to be anywhere near the tank.

    However, this does not mean that there are not other nutrients, msot probably ammonia, that WILL crash a tank.
     
  12. Daniel072

    Daniel072 Giant Squid

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    I've had this happen with an old crushed coral sand bed. I was too dumb to actually rinse the substrate after the tank had sat with about 3 inches of water for about 6 months. I eventually just replaced the entire CC bed with sand and that resolved the issue. I would imagine you are going to have to do the same thing, sad to say.