Air Bubbles

[Jason25]

Ok everyone, I have a question that has me really stumped. As some of you know I recently suffered a mjor crash and lost all of my corals. So this weekend I was cleaning the tank and starting to get it ready for the rebuild and noticed that there are air bubbles all over my sand and also in it. I can see them where the sand is up over the glass in the front. I have no idea how that got there and why they are not dissipating? Should I just get a rake of some sort and rake the sand until they are gone? This tank has only been up since I relocated it in my new place in Oct.and at that time I replaced the sand as well so I am not sure if I need to be to worried about stirring up the sand. Also do they make a rake for the sand and where can I get one? I checked my LFS and it appears they do not have one which surprises me because they have everything.

 

[rmlevasseur]

The air bubbles are probably a result of natural dentrification in your sand bed, which is good. They are actually nitrogen bubbles, which is the end result of a working sand bed.

On the other hand, if you sand is algae or cyano coated, the bubbles could be caused by that. In the worst case scenario, a sand bed that has turned black in areas could be releasing sulphur dioxide, which can be a definite cause of a crash. This is fairly rare though.

Either way, occasional stirring of just the top layer is fine, but even better to let a good cuc do it.

 

[mettjl03]

I use a kitchen spatula to mix my sand around to get the junk off the bottom, it seems to do the trick. Maybe that would help you?