Darker Sand At The Bottom Of The Tank. Bacterial Bloom?

[Motörcrab]

Last night I noticed my bubblers have been slowly flooding my tank. When I dug to the glass bottom I found the last inch to inch and a half was darker gray but, not black. It had a musty smell like a damp basement but NOT the pungent rotten egg/sulfer smell. I read someplace on here that Eco Earth can stain the sand too.

I'm not sure if I'm at the beginning of a bacterial bloom or if it is just from being wet.

I attached a picture of a clump of the dark stuff on my normal substrate.

Not having a good day. I found my MIA purple while moving the substrate. I found him in the darker substrate. I'm thinking that's what contributed to his death.

I was just doing some searching. I didn't see any real caresheet or much info about bacterial blooms. Only the sand turns black, and smells like sulfer/rotten eggs.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[wodesorel]

Yeah. That's a bacterial bloom. I would recommend scraping off the good sand on top to reuse and tossing everything that is affected.

Bacterial blooms usually smell horrible, but not always. My last one smelled exactly like mothballs.

[Motörcrab]

Thanks for the info wode! After posting this I saw two other posts about bacterial blooms. One was from soilentgringa when he had one two years ago. His description sounded similar to my situation. All the way to having to lug sand up and down stairs.

Unfortunately when I was digging down I mixed some of the good and bad sand together. So I believe it will be best for us to replace everything around 300 pounds of substrate.

On the positive side all my crabs have been up and active aside from the purple I found last night while digging. They weather should be nice for us tomorrow as well.

From what I read there is no real way to prevent this. I believe once I put trays under my pools that will hopefully prevent the flooding and in turn prevent another bloom from happening.

I was wondering if adding airline at the bottom of the tank with holes in it would help to add oxygen into the sand to help prevent it. Basically snake it around making two or three "S" shapes or possibly form a grid with a bunch of "T" connectors.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[ROSIEonFIRE]

Thanks for the info wode! After posting this I saw two other posts about bacterial blooms. One was from soilentgringa when he had one two years ago. His description sounded similar to my situation. All the way to having to lug sand up and down stairs.

Unfortunately when I was digging down I mixed some of the good and bad sand together. So I believe it will be best for us to replace everything around 300 pounds of substrate.

On the positive side all my crabs have been up and active aside from the purple I found last night while digging. They weather should be nice for us tomorrow as well.

From what I read there is no real way to prevent this. I believe once I put trays under my pools that will hopefully prevent the flooding and in turn prevent another bloom from happening.

I was wondering if adding airline at the bottom of the tank with holes in it would help to add oxygen into the sand to help prevent it. Basically snake it around making two or three "S" shapes or possibly form a grid with a bunch of "T" connectors.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

Just a heads up, gringa is the feminine version of gringo, which is masculine. So I'm pretty sure that soilent is a girl.

Sorry to hear about these blooms! I spray my tank to keep the hu.idity up, which is fine for now, but eventually I want to add a daytime light which will mean I'll need more humidity. When that happens I think I'm going to make a humidifier and pump it in. Bubblers just seem so messy!

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[aussieJJDude]

Just a heads up, gringa is the feminine version of gringo, which is masculine. So I'm pretty sure that soilent is a girl.

Yep. SG is in fact female.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

[Motörcrab]

Oh! My appoligies to soilentgringa. I wasn't sure if it was a spelling difference or slang meaning. Similar to how we use color and England and Australia have colour or we may abbreviate Nothing into nothin. I never had a Spanish in high school due to going the vocational trade classes instead of business or college prep. What I picked up is very limited.

[wodesorel]

The online hermit crab hobby skews insanely female. Like 95%. If in doubt, we are probably a lady.


Oxygenating the sand will prevent bacterial blooms, but there is no easy way to do this since if oversaturated the blooms can start in the middle of the mass rather than at the very bottom. Usually bottom blooms are triggered by a dead crab or trapped food or organic matter getting too wet. Ideally the sand needs mechanically mixed on a regular basis but it's hard to do with constant molters.

[Jamison]

Is like to pop in and say I'm one of the few males! And sorry about the bloom, I hope everything's okay!

[Motörcrab]

I'm one of the other guys too! Lol

We got the tank taken care of it was a pain but we got it. We got a way later start than what we planned. The sand I got Friday night was outside at the store and wet. I had to return that and get dry sand from another store. Then we had several things pop up we had to run an do. We finally started around noon. It took about 2 hours to pull all the substrate and clean the tank. There were a few things I changed up and wanted to try in tank so that took a bit of planning and build time.

Decorating drove me crazy. I really like to plan out my tanks. This was more of a try and hurry and get it back together. It turned out ok but I'm not all that happy with it. It definitely needs some tweaking. As long as the crabs are content that's all that matters right?

Xeno checked her 30 gallon tank and found a bloom in that too. She pulled all the crabs out some of which were burried. She found our E Eddie in burried and missing both claws and all but one leg. I have an emergency post about him and the care I am giving him. I'm currently tending to him with hand feeding. I really hope he pulls through he is one of my favorite crabs.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[Oliviet#1]

I hope your E gets better!

[Motörcrab]

Thanks. I'm going to try my best with him. It's going to be a long process for Eddie and us. Everyone on here is extremely helpful with all kinds of advice. I would be lost without everyone's help. I really appreciate it all.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk