Sulfurous smell in Enclosure

I noticed this morning that Ziggy's enclosure has an eggy sulfurous smell when I lean right in. There is no standing water. I did a thorough clean out yesterday. I am concerned that maybe my plants aren't draining well. Thinking about repotting them all and adding more sand to my soil mix.

Before I go all out and do this just wanted to run it by the experts. Repotting is a chore for me...I have no outdoor space, my apartment doesn't have a balcony and I have to use the dining room table. )

Right now I have Ziggy out of the enclosure and i'm running a fan in there to try and dry it out.

For drainage I also recommend putting something like pea pebbles or medium/small sized rocks and the bottom of the pots.

Your plants probably are not draining enough and getting too much water and have root rot. It smells like that and is bad! You need to fill your pot directly with water and see how much water is coming out. You may need to poke some more holes in the pot (if it is plastic) if it is ceramic, then I don't know what to tell you! I had the same problem long ago before I started watering my chams outdoors and poking the extra holes got rid of the problem. You still may have to repot though depending on the severity of the root rot.

It does sound as though it might be the water is not draining properly. I had a schefflera that had this same smell. The bottom draining part got clogged and the pot was FULL of water.

Sand may or may not fix the problem.

Well going to repot and air stuff out. I think I will lighten the mix with some sand and add additional rocks to the bottoms. I have seen a recommendation to add activated charcoal as well, so I will do this to the bottom 2/3. Ziggy is a dirt eater, I don't want him eating funky soil. I have rocks on the top but the dude pushes them off. I have some craft foam on order and plan to make cones around the tops of the pots. I think that will reduce the excess water issues as well, since much of the misting water will run right off. I will be glad when I get the Aquazamp and the new table with drainage set up. That is next weekends project as its all arriving this week.

Thanks everyone for the superfast input!!

I love this group!

If he pushes the rocks over out rocks down and then cover the top of the pot with a screen.

qdude46 said:

If he pushes the rocks over out rocks down and then cover the top of the pot with a screen.

Click to expand...

I was just at Lowes and saw fiberglass screen by the roll. Would that work? I am finding the plants are way too heavy with the layer of big rocks on them now.

It was the Pothos...of course its the one that is most in line with the misting and dripping so not surprised, OMG my apartment smells foul. For the price of them I tossed the whole thing, after I unspotted it and realized it was pretty gross. I cut most of the vines off as they looked really healthy and I will grow them from cuttings.

I repotted everything, improved all of the drainage, like most I really did not believe the volume of water that goes through that enclosure every day.

Fiberglass screen is fine, pretty much any window screen.