Anaerobic gas pockets...

[Migs]

I'm afraid my subtrate is too thick...  I have heavily planted tank containing about 5cm of aquatic plant soil with 5cm of inert gravel on top of that.  Everything is great up to now but I'm worried about poisonous hydrogen sulfide(H2S) pockets forming...  

I've heard that releasing one of these pockets can kill all the fauna in the tank.  Does anyone have experience with this phenomena?  I'd like to hear your thoughts on it...

[gvv]

Depending on the aquarium type: fresh- or salt- water.
You may look at the info here:
http://www.fishinthe.net/html/section-printpage-50.html
and here
http://www.geocities.com/josh_shilling/bacteria.html
but in general the suggestion for freshwater is just stir the substrate regularly. I have gravel and nevertheless these pockets appear. So, you just vacuuming them when cleaning the tank.

[Marx]

buy the stuff from mermaid pools and its big enough not to super compact lol...

[gvv]

My gravel in the planted tank is much bigger (grains are about 1/4") than the sand from Mermaid Pools (1/8"-1/16"), but these pockets still appear... I have to stir it, even I have the longnose loach and MTS'es. But yes, the tank is a little bit overcrowded and the substrate is 2" deep.
One thing for sure - I did not lose any fish because of them.

In order to get rid of these pockets you need to have cichlids :lol: . But then you should forget about planted tank :lol: I never found any pockets in the Malawi tank, even the substrate is 3" deep, but the problem is that the crushed coral always moved from one corner ot another...

[luvfishies]

I'm afraid my subtrate is too thick...  I have heavily planted tank containing about 5cm of aquatic plant soil with 5cm of inert gravel on top of that.  Everything is great up to now but I'm worried about poisonous hydrogen sulfide(H2S) pockets forming...  

I've heard that releasing one of these pockets can kill all the fauna in the tank.  Does anyone have experience with this phenomena?  I'd like to hear your thoughts on it...

If your plant roots are growing well, and established, this shouldn't be an issue.

[Migs]

Thanks all.  We'll see what happens...