mkeller
New Member
How long does it take to dissipate hydrogen sulfide from a point source in an aquarium?
The 18 gallon reef I keep at my office has given me trouble for the past few months. Tank has been set up for 8 months and has never had any measurable ammonia, nitrite or phosphate (set up with rock from another tank). In the past month I had a torch coral which had grown well for years in my aggressive tank at home die off and an emerald crab die. The other corals in the tank were doing okay, but definitely not thriving. Water parameters tested fine. I put a small clownfish in the tank as my first vertebrate. It died in a couple of hours. I performed two 50% water changes in the past 4 days. One just before adding the clownfish and the other after realizing something was amiss. Never having lost a fish in a mature tank before I started to investigate. The last addition to my tank was a spiney oyster I collected in June. I pulled it out of the tank this afternoon and discovered H2S was being produced in a chunk of steel attached to its base. (I had suspected an iron toxicity, but could never measure any significant amount of iron in the water, I never thought that a 1/4 " piece of ships steel could go anaerobic) The odor was unmistakable as soon as the oyster was removed from the water. Fortunately the iron was far softer than the oyster and I was able to scrape it off in chunks without too much difficulty and no damage to the oyster.
None of the inhabitents- soft corals, crabs and snails presently appear stressed. Since the source has been eliminated and 75% of the water has been changed since Friday I was going to leave well enough alone.
Question- Do I need to do additional water changes to the tank or will the H2S dissipate on its own? Thoughts appreciated.
The 18 gallon reef I keep at my office has given me trouble for the past few months. Tank has been set up for 8 months and has never had any measurable ammonia, nitrite or phosphate (set up with rock from another tank). In the past month I had a torch coral which had grown well for years in my aggressive tank at home die off and an emerald crab die. The other corals in the tank were doing okay, but definitely not thriving. Water parameters tested fine. I put a small clownfish in the tank as my first vertebrate. It died in a couple of hours. I performed two 50% water changes in the past 4 days. One just before adding the clownfish and the other after realizing something was amiss. Never having lost a fish in a mature tank before I started to investigate. The last addition to my tank was a spiney oyster I collected in June. I pulled it out of the tank this afternoon and discovered H2S was being produced in a chunk of steel attached to its base. (I had suspected an iron toxicity, but could never measure any significant amount of iron in the water, I never thought that a 1/4 " piece of ships steel could go anaerobic) The odor was unmistakable as soon as the oyster was removed from the water. Fortunately the iron was far softer than the oyster and I was able to scrape it off in chunks without too much difficulty and no damage to the oyster.
None of the inhabitents- soft corals, crabs and snails presently appear stressed. Since the source has been eliminated and 75% of the water has been changed since Friday I was going to leave well enough alone.
Question- Do I need to do additional water changes to the tank or will the H2S dissipate on its own? Thoughts appreciated.