Help with hydrogen sulfide in rainwater system.

Hello all,

My first post here at Permies.

I live in NW Arkansas, and built a rainwater catchment system that gravity feeds my house. Due to drought here, the two 1500gal tanks were really low this month (only a foot or so of water left) and it was in the low 90s for temperatures. The past week the water coming to the house (I ran underground pipe) has turned slightly hazy, and smells of hydrogen sulfide rather badly. The tanks are set 30" into the soil to help prevent freezing, and are covered from direct sunlight by the same roof that fills them. Has anyone had this problem with rainwater cisterns? What caused this, and what can we do to remedy and prevent it? My thought is that the low water levels warmed too much and had an algae/bacterial overbloom. I don't mind chlorinating to fix the current issue, but don't want to have ongoing chlorination of my rainwater. I just added a better roof-washer system to hopefully remove more dust/pollen from the system in the future. Thanks for any ideas,
Ryan

I've only seen a few RC systems, but they have all needed chlorination. Even in Hawaii where the air is pretty clean. I suspect it's because of dust & pollen, as you mentioned, but also feces from birds & rodents & reptiles as well as leaves.

Good Morning,
I see that you have a rainwater harvesting system on your home and you're having some issues with "stinky" water. May I ask what type of system you have? I believe I may have a few recommendations once I learn what type of system you have and what the harvested rainwater water is used for. What type of pre-filter do you use?

Clean with Peroxide, then silver.

If you have a biofilm, you are going to have to pressure wash with the peroxide.

You should put in a silver ionic electrolysis system to keep it fresh.

They used to just toss in .999 silver spoons, but you need more ions floating around in something that size

Hello, if I may ask what material are your catchment containers made of?

I understand that hydrogen sulfide is quite acidic, and my friends catchment water where I happen to be right now is made of concrete via the ferrocemment construction method, I believe that the alkalinity of the cemment container reduces the ph of the water from the hydrogen sulfide in the air. So unless you want to get a concrete catchment you could maybe try adding something alkaline to your water.