Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

No I didn't...never made any such suggestion....

But personally... I wouldn't use a dead prawn...


This aspect has been extensively covered by TCL in her "PeePonics" thread...

Sorry Rupert,
What I meant was that the other sources of ammonia you mentioned "could potentially introduce disease" i.e adding dead fish products from other waterways, tanks, aquariums, oceans,rivers, etc.. I was going to seed my tank with some sacrificial gold fish for example, but the hatchery strongly warned me against that... Even using ocean caught offal was a no no.

And no haven't read TLC's pee ponics thread but I have no doubt it has a world of wisdom in it.
I don't have a problem using my own pee either. Just wouldn't use anyone elses.. Actually, my wife I guess.. Though I think handing her a jar would be an interesting scenario

I had bottle of pee sitting on the bench in the shed next to my system while I waited for it to cycle (so I could add it when ever I tested and it it needed it of course ).

The look on eveyone's face was priceless when I told them what was in it

I actually went a bit overboard with it and needed to change out quite a bit of water at one stage. No fish in there at the time so all was good. Once cycled I threw a couple of goldies in.

Got 10 goldies in there now with no deaths so far. Touch wood. That reminds me actually I haven't tested the water in over 3 or 4 months now, lost track of when I did the last one. Not too fussed really. Goldfish are pretty tuff.

Wonder were I could get a couple of salmon from to throw in there for a test run?

Bet you are not game to pee in a iced tea bottle and put it in the fridge

Any of you collect pee and sepetate the ammonia with a solar still to reclaim the H2O? I have seen it done on survivorman, so it probably works but is there an AP application waiting to happen there???

Aged pee in a bottle is fine!!!!!!!
Actually, aging the hummonia in a sealed bottle has a few benefits actually.
1- aging the pee sealed in a bottle allows the urea to be converted to ammonia ahead of time (this can help avoid overdosing.)
2- that above mentioned conversion tends to shift the pH up and between the high pH and the ammonia, tends to kill off e. coli.

By the way, e. coli is likely to be present in most urine samples. We have it naturally in our intestines and it tends to be on our skin. Not that big a deal as long as it doesn't get into other parts of our bodies (where it doesn't belong) in too high numbers, if it does, it can cause infections, most common probably being bladder/urinary tract infections. I have run tests to see that the aging does kill off e. coli in samples that are intentionally contaminated, while a sampe of fresh urine will test positive for e. coli. I ran the aging for two weeks on my tests.

Now I don't recommend using urine of a person who is sick, or taking antibiotics or other really strong medications. But if you are healthy and collecting your own urine for use in cycling up a bio-filter. Aging the urine for weeks or even months in a sealed bottle is actually a good thing!

Oh, how much to dose.
Well that might depend a bit on the strength of the sample. However, I think less than 200 ml per 100 liters would do it.

As in, for the first dose, try 200 ml of aged hummonia and wait several hours for the dose to mix into the system then test for ammonia. Between 1 and 2 ppm is great but so long as you can see that the ammonia is below say 5 ppm, that should be fine. Don't dose again until the ammonia is obviously below 1 but you might want to wait till it is close to 0. Based on the first dose, you can probably estimate the proper amount to dose the next time to only bring the ammonia level up to between 1 and 2 ppm. Once you can dose to that amount one day and have both the ammonia and nitrite read 0 24 hours later, then you are cycled. I would advise that after the second dose, you wait till the nitrite starts coming down below 1 before adding any more doses. It doesn't take many doses to cycle a system really. The first three or four doses are spaced out while you wait for levels to start dropping and then after that you might be nearly cycled and only dosing to see the results that the levels come back to 0 the day after the dose and then to keep the bacteria fed until ready to get fish.

Nice advice and explanation on the pee there TC... Especially the E.coli point and anyone taking antibiotics, or any medications for that matter.. Most medications no matter how low a dose secrete metabolites in the urine.. Not to mention the oral contraceptive pill in women.. But at those low doses of urine, I'm not certain that would be of any concern. The most important point as you mentioned is to collect a sample from a healthy person.. e.g. I wouldn't recommend collecting from grandpa's catheter bag..

Hey, but would you believe I am now cycling my tank with 79 atlantic salmon but my nitrites and nitrates are reading absolutely zip for a 7 days now.

The ammonia has fluctuated b/w 0.0 and 0.25ppm over the past week. I did not feed for one day as the water temp was 20 degrees and the ammonia immediately dropped from 0.25 to 0.0 again within 12 hours..

Interestingly, 3 days after the last dose of fish emulsion was used when fishlessly cycling (is fishlessly a word?! ) the nitrates plummeted to 0.0 from 10.0ppm and have not changed since. Is this normal? I thought once the system was cycled, nitrates would remain pumping to at least a detectable level? Or is it that as soon you get the last reading of ammonia and nitrites to 0.0 after 24 hours, you then have to add the fish or the bacteria begin to die off again?

If so, this would explain why nothing is happening in my tank as it was about 10 days before I added fish..

The bacteria can die back a bit if there is nothing for them to eat. However, do you have plants in the system? It is also possible that they sucked down all the nitrates. Many systems that are lucky enough to be in good balance may never show readable nitrates if the plants are using it all at the same rate they are being produced. Most people have measurable nitrates once a system is cycled though.

If you are seeing ammonia readings, you might not be totally cycled up to the load and should keep a close eye on things especially if you want to increase the feeding.

Yep, got a lot of plants in the system. I'm going to take a pic today to show the growth over the past 5 weeks since planting.
You could be right about the nitrates then. The ammonia goes up but comes straight back down again..
I'm monitoring it every day so I can begin to increase feeding. Its a fine line though as water temps are still hovering b/w 18-19degrees every day so I don't want to overdo it..

"You lucky, lucky bastard" (Monty Python).... my trout tank has been "hovering" between 22-26....

Ammonium Sulphate? What happens to the Sulphate. It should lower pH, which in river water might be a good thing.

What has to happen to Urea to make it work? It should break down with water to form 2x NH3 and CO2, but it dissolves in water instead. Perhaps it needs preparing a bit like Urine. I need to mix a KG or two in a bucket and sit it in the sun for a few days, with a lid on. I think you lose it to the atmosphere otherwise. We are told you have to water or work it in or you lose it. I'm looking for the chemical make up of Easy-N now, to see if it is any different from Urea.

Urea can be put directly in the system in small doses. The main issue is patients as after your first dose it will take some time before the urea changes into ammonia (I know in urine the enzyme that causes the change is already present but with urea fertilizer, you might have to wait around for nature to realize there is some urea in there in need of conversion.) So, after dosing with urea, you can't simply wait an hour and expect to find an ammonia reading on your test kit. More patients is required when using urea. If you go dosing again and again because you don't see an ammonia reading, you will likely wind up with an extreme overdose which may hinder the whole cycling process.

I'm not sure if mixing urea fertilizer with some water and sealing up the container will allow the conversion to take place. Perhaps some one can test it out (are there any dangers with doing this?) If the Urea is sterile and the water/container too clean, I don't know if the conversion will happen in such a situation?

Very true TCL.... the intermediate stage where the Urease enzyme converts urea to ammonia... may take several days...

What about if I peed into the container with the Urea in it. I was thinking 250g in a 20L drum (I think I have a 20L Seasol drum in the shed), and a bit of a wiz. This might make a 6pp't' mixture (urea is 46%N, I'll count Ammonia as the same as N. A couple of Hs shouldn't make much difference.) I'm picturing those enzimes making a start on the urine and carrying on into the Urea, but like it says below!!