How to get rid of hydrogen sulfide? Black decaying material everywhere

kingkai512 · Apr 30, 2023

So i had a loss of power for 4 days in this fallow tank a few months back in which i did not aerate the tank. I believe this might have caused my bacteria to change from aerobic to anaerobic and now i have almost no oxygen or high sulfur dioxide or something, i cant add any fish. Every one goes into this hypoxic like state and then i have to remove them.

I made another thread about this a little while ago and i think this might be the problem, see the video attached and you can see black clumps of decaying matter from i think hair algae? Either way, i cant seem to drive this down as im always finding more of these clumps even with increased flow and an added bubbler. I even added a clam for food (crustaceans seem to not mind high sulfur) and not even 2 days the surface touching the sand turned black.

Tl;dr how do i remove hydrogen sulfide from my tank....

brandon429 · Apr 30, 2023

Old tank syndrome is vanquished in reefing now

the cause of old tank syndrome is compounding whole waste particles that blanket the interstitial sand grain zones and plug up the channels in live rocks. Old tank syndrome is the gradual reduction of open, high flow contact reef tank surface area via compounding waste and invasion blanketing...

www.reef2reef.com

Read and apply for the win

Written exactly for your situation

brandon429 · Apr 30, 2023

I don't think h s is your issue at all, that's just the correct way to reboot after any big insult.

Garf · Apr 30, 2023

kingkai512 said:
So i had a loss of power for 4 days in this fallow tank a few months back in which i did not aerate the tank. I believe this might have caused my bacteria to change from aerobic to anaerobic and now i have almost no oxygen or high sulfur dioxide or something, i cant add any fish. Every one goes into this hypoxic like state and then i have to remove them.

I made another thread about this a little while ago and i think this might be the problem, see the video attached and you can see black clumps of decaying matter from i think hair algae? Either way, i cant seem to drive this down as im always finding more of these clumps even with increased flow and an added bubbler. I even added a clam for food (crustaceans seem to not mind high sulfur) and not even 2 days the surface touching the sand turned black.

Tl;dr how do i remove hydrogen sulfide from my tank.... View attachment 3130713

Can you smell rotten eggs?

kingkai512 · Apr 30, 2023

Garf said:
Can you smell rotten eggs?

Yes, those black clumps smell of rotten eggs and the rocks themselves

Garf · Apr 30, 2023

kingkai512 said:
Yes, those black clumps smell of rotten eggs and the rocks themselves

If it were my tank, not knowing the strange chemistry that’s been going on, I’d start again with this tank, ditch everything. Maybe overkill though.

kingkai512 · Apr 30, 2023

Garf said:
If it were my tank, not knowing the strange chemistry that’s been going on, I’d start again with this tank, ditch everything. Maybe overkill though.

So thats what im kinda doing now, i removed the rock and its bleaching at the moment, and before that i replaced all the sand.

My concern is even after all that the bacteria thats making sulfur will still be there, even after a whole new sand bed its still creating black patches fairly quickly as seen in that clam pic above

brandon429 · Apr 30, 2023

That's opposite of the method, you wouldn't begin killing your entire biosystem, it's not dead

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 1, 2023

I don't think one can readily remove existing precipitated metal sulfides (the black deposits), but removing decaying organic matter in some fashion will prevent ongoing production of problematic hydrogen sulfide. A thorough washing of the sand or replacement are both likely to work, IMO.

kingkai512 · May 1, 2023

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
I don't think one can readily remove existing precipitated metal sulfides (the black deposits), but removing decaying organic matter in some fashion will prevent ongoing production of problematic hydrogen sulfide. A thorough washing of the sand or replacement are both likely to work, IMO.

See thats exactly what i did, i replaced all the sand and those deposits still form. My theory is that during the storm outage all the aerobic bacteria died leaving only anaerobic bacteria. Now how can i increase my aerobic and decrease the anaerobic? Ive added a bubbler and maxed the light schedule to increase oxygen production and currently bleaching the rock just to be sure...

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 1, 2023

What did you replace the sand with?

The black was gone and reappeared?

kingkai512 · May 1, 2023

Yes i removed all of the sand and put new sand, however any organic matter that was reburied must have caused more growth, which i understand is normal but i think i have an abnormal amount....
I am reading a gfo reactor can help remove the sulfides so i am going to try that, i just hope eventually the bacteria can slow down..