Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

HEY TC,, I was definately NOt peeing on peeponics.
I was perhaps , maybe possibly, tellling about my lack of usage of what my aging ,, BUT virlile bodies excraments are being utlised for ..... SEE , there is always a BUT.

"But" i'd beter go mto sleep,,,long day behind ,,long day ahead,,, loving children will want to dad in a few hours.

Naun Dee ( thai language for good sleep)

It was no just the big system that got a clean up yesterday. I pulled the broccoli out of the pee ponic system and did some pruning/training of the toms. Planted some seeds in the half barrels.
Here are a few pics.

Is that aged urine that's browny orange in colour? Interesting, didn't know it would turn that colour from something clear/pale yellow.

it all depends on the donor, what they have been eating/drinking, how much water they drink, etc.
I also find that if the juice bottles are not well rinsed before use, they will turn the urine a bit darker too.

I notice that my urine can be different colors based on the time of day I collect it or how hard I've been working and definitely if I didn't drink enough water that day.

It will also naturally get a little bit darker just by aging.

Hehe once I had a red urine after I had beetroot at lunch or dinner... (No, I didn't have the urine for lunch after the beetroot.. I excreted it )
I just googled if this could happen - it could under some conditions - http://www.jr2.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/band124/b124-7.html

liquorice is a good colour changer too

i'm fairly sure that if you drink a tea made from strawberry leaves it will turn it bright red.

cant remember what medicinal virtue the strawberry leaves had, but sounds like a neat party trick _

nope, think i was wrong...............happens occasionally

I know there is some fairly harmless chemical out there that will turn urine blue. About all I know is some wardrobe person put it in the water of an actor who was a particular gerk.

I just had a wicked thought At an ap meeting a bunch of apers standing around a fish tank peeing in it and comparing colors

That would be one overdosed fish tank, unless it was like a mega swimming pool system with lots of big grow beds.

Drip dosing still working well. It is a little tedious to get it set to the proper flow rate though.

I suppose it would be easier while I'm around to re-fill the bottle regularly to dilute the mixture and let it drip out faster but I'm trying to get it set so that the stronger mix takes longer to drip in so that I need not worry about it while I'm out of town.

Everyday this gets more attractive (peeponics that is).

When I build a house (possibly in the far far future, I'm still very young, still studying not employed) I want to make it very smartly designed with green-y stuff (like environmental stuff.).

If there were separate plumbing for urine leading to a peeponics tank (the tank could be out of sight/submerged/whatever - there are no fish to watch anyway) you could tap all that rich mineral stuff that you put in the drain everyday and recycle it for free delicous food. The plants could be on the roof, on window ledges, maybe outer walls could have little growbeds built into them so you would have a green (I mean literally) wall outside.

You would retain much of the micronutrients that way which would go down the drain otherwise making you need pharmaceutical supplements instead.

Very little urine seems to go a long way in plant growth by what this thread says, and urine from the whole family coming in through separate plumbing would grow an enormous amount stuff!


Are there any deficiencies/problems at all in your system TCLynx? Does sodium chloride build up? Especially if you have like quite some salt in your diet. Are there any deficiencies/problems at all?

I've seen signs of iron deficiency but I suspect that is as much related to pH as an actual lack but some iron may still need to be supplemented in any case. I expect that potassium would also need some supplementation.

I suspect a very large amount of gravel would be needed for utilizing all the urine from a family Instead of planning a huge pee tank somewhere, I'll suggest reading up on Humanure (here is the publisher's/author's web site with it's own forum http://www.jenkinspublishing.com/humanure.html
and here is a site where you can read the 2nd edition of the book for fee online
http://www.weblife.org/humanure/default.html
and use half the pee for properly composting the human manure and avoid flush plumbing all together and then one can use a lower tech means for using the urine to grow crops. (Urine makes a pretty good fertilizer for dirt gardening as well.)

You mention being interested in building green. Well perhaps the type of construction I'm about to mention isn't really "green" per say, but it is a very energy efficient type of construction for heating/cooling. It is also a very disaster resistant and strong type of construction. http://static.monolithic.com/ Thinshell concrete construction.

As to salt build up. I haven't noticed any problems with it yet. Perhaps long term one would need to occasionally do a water change and rinse of the system. I doubt I'll see much trouble with it in my set up as rain falls into my systems and we get lots of rain most years. In any case, there will likely be less trouble with salt build up this way than with traditional hydroponics.