I was in at the LFS talking to a guy who runs after the planted tanks there and he shivered when I mentioned I had 2" of play-sand as substrate for my tank due to gas pocket development.
He stated that he had his plants and fish die off in a tank because of gas build-up in the substrate. I've got a healthy breeding population of Malaysian Trumpet Snails that are all over the place - I imagine that I have at least as many in the sand as on the glass.
Can anyone with experience weigh in on the gas pocket debate? Some brief searching has yielded that the gas can be methane, nitrogen, even hydrogen sulphide and for each post I read saying that it's toxic, there's another saying that it's fine.
Thanks in advance!
Hugh