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| May I pee in my fish tank? http://byap.backyardmagazines.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=10362 |
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| Author: | kthignight24 [ Aug 24th, '11, 08:02 ] |
| Post subject: | May I pee in my fish tank? |
That was a fun subject to write  . I saw something about peeponics recently. I thought it was interesting to take the vitamins and minerals that your body doesn't need and feeding them back to the plants. Would it be OK to add urine to an aquaponics system? Would it harm the fish or be unsanitary to eat fish that have been swimming in it? Obviously it would be a small amount compared to the water volume of the system.
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| Author: | TCLynx [ Aug 24th, '11, 08:16 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: May I pee in my fish tank? |
I wouldn't pee in a tank with fish in it unless you are very sure the bio-filter can handle the extra ammonia quickly enough to keep from hurting your fish. I would also recommend sealing the pee in a bottle for a few weeks to let the urea content convert to ammonia and the pH to rise and kill most of the common pathogens likely to be in a healthy person's urine. Yes urine is fairly sterile but we all have skin and bacteria is on our skin and it can get into the urine. Anyway, Aged Humonia is fairly safe provided you are not on any strong medications or carrying typhus or yellow fever. Lets see is the Pee Ponics thread in my signature? |
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| Author: | mattlevy [ Aug 24th, '11, 08:18 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: May I pee in my fish tank? |
My understanding is that it can be a good way to get the bacteria up and running before you add fish. Keep in mind that any extra amonia in the water places more stress on the fish and bio filter. if you system is not cycled yet do not pee in it. you will kill the fish because there is not sufficient bacteria to break it down. |
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| Author: | TCLynx [ Aug 24th, '11, 08:26 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: May I pee in my fish tank? |
However, if you have no fish yet, Aged Humonia (pee urine) is actually a really handy way to dose the ammonia to cycle the system up. Aging the pee first helps not only to take care of things like e. coli but also allows the urea to convert into ammonia and to avoid the delayed reaction before you will get the ammonia reading. Pee strength will vary but somewhere between 100 ml to 500 ml may well be enough per dose in a 50-600 gallon system for cycling. I cycled up my barrel ponics system using 100-200 ml doses and I cycled up my big system that was originally around 600 gallons using doses of about 500 mL most times. |
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| Author: | Web4Deb [ Aug 24th, '11, 20:28 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: May I pee in my fish tank? |
(I won't admit it to my wife, but) I pee directly into the sump of my system to give it an extra boost once in awhile. It has 500 gallons of water so it's highly diluted. It's the primary reason why I have such a low stocking density. 
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| Author: | kthignight24 [ Aug 24th, '11, 23:11 ] |
| Post subject: | Re: May I pee in my fish tank? |
So to summarize everything... One concern is that pathogens could possibly be in urine that could harm us, so if the urine is aged the pH will rise and kill most of the bacteria. After it's aged it's pretty much the same as fish waste (turns into ammonia, then gets broken down by bacteria). It seems like you could also heat the urine to make sure it was sterile, yes? You'd want to add it slowly and consistently, so as to not stress the system. The last thing I learned is that's it's very satisfying to urinate directly into one's system (this one was very intuitive) .
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