Ammonia

When you have sand in the tank, you're supposed to give it a stir up every so , every couple of days or weekly, either with your turkey baster or siphon/gravel cleaner as pockets of anaerobic gas can build up within the sand layer as well as bits of food or waste getting trapped beneath it, particularly where there are plants or decos/hides; so this may very well have caused the problem.
 
kapo said:
When you have sand in the tank, you're supposed to give it a stir up every so , every couple of days or weekly, either with your turkey baster or siphon/gravel cleaner as pockets of anaerobic gas can build up within the sand layer as well as bits of food or waste getting trapped beneath it, particularly where there are plants or decos/hides; so this may very well have caused the problem.
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Ah right! We werent aware of this and never had this problem with his old tank. Is perfectly safe to have the tank with a bare bottom, isnt it?

Hopefully everything will be fine now!
 
I agree with Kapo, Yeap it is fine to have a bare bottom tank real easy to clean.
 
Sounds like your sandbed was too deep and went anaerobic. That smell was hydrogen sulfide gas and was likely a big part of the problem. The deep sand bed is a good thing in some circumstances but I have always found that they are more of a problem due to nutrient accumulation and ultimately decreased water quality. Sounds like you are on the right track now.
 
MRIGUY said:
Sounds like your sandbed was too deep and went anaerobic. That smell was hydrogen sulfide gas and was likely a big part of the problem. The deep sand bed is a good thing in some circumstances but I have always found that they are more of a problem due to nutrient accumulation and ultimately decreased water quality. Sounds like you are on the right track now.
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I read about the gas under the sand but I didnt think that could be the problem as our sand was barely covering the bottom of the tank.

Hopefully that was the problem and now he is all happy again!

Thanks for all your advice!
 
I like barebottom tanks too, easy for cleaning and feeding, 3 of ours are bare bottom now. The others still have sand in them, probably just over a cm deep in places but we still have to give them a regular stir as the sand tends to get moved round into little dunes when the axies are moving etc... and we usually find odd bit of waste partially buried.
 
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