hydrogen sulfide!

[Gseclipse02]

how big is your tank ?

[Gseclipse02]

Carbon filters it out I believe

if you need a carbon reactor for a little while i can take my offline and fill it with new carbon if you need it

[d3rryc]

thanks, but i've already got 2 fresh cups running in a reactor, plus two or three more in a bag in the skimmer chamber.

[d3rryc]

oh, and total water volume is around 150 gals.

[ErikH]

You should be a-ok 20% water changes until your house doesnt reek anymore.

[Bill S]

Lots of aeration and you should be fine.

[d3rryc]

Well, by the grace of God, I seem to have dodged the bullet on this one. By 11pm, the sulfur smell had dissipated dramatically. I moved the K4s up closer to the surface to increase agitation there, and I kept the skimmer going full bore. I put two cups of new carbon in the media reactor, I added another two or three cups to the skimmer chamber in a bag, and I already had two cups of GFO running in another reactor. I did a 15% water change once the new water temp matched the tank temp, and I'll do another 15% this evening just to be safe.

Lessons learned:

• If there's a problem with a closed loop, find a way to keep it limping along until the full fix can be put in so that you don't end up with stagnant water in the pipes. (I don't know why it never occurred to me to simply reinstall the super squirt - at least it was still moving water!)
• [link]According to Randy Holmes-Farley[link], aeration, carbon and GFO all help remove hydrogen sulfide from the water, so it's good to have an emergency stash of carbon and GFO on hand.
• If at all possible, have a batch of new SW mixed and ready to go. If that's not practical, at least have a plan for how to get some mixed up in a hurry (which was the route I had to take).

Thanks for all the advice and encouragement!