Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello, It's me again. Here in Peru it is absolutely impossible to get hold of ammonia because they use it in the production of drugs. I was unware of that, but could have landed myself in big trouble as I was walking round the local chain hardware warehouse with a bag of fertilizer in one hand while asking where thy kept the ammonia..... Anyway I did not want to wait 2 weeks for the urine to age and I saw in one blog that dead fish work so.. they do. I put one small fish in the sump tank and the next day

PH 7.2 Ammonia 1.0 ppm Nitrites 2/5.0 ppm Nitrates 10 ppm

(The Nitrites are difficult to read in the 2-5 ppm so, I put it like that as it is one or the other. I figure it doesn't matter as I do not want either. The low end readings are easy to differentiate)
I also must add that I did start to cycle with urine but stopped because I thought, mistakenly that it would be unreliable. I've got some ageing now.

Day 2 still with fish in tank PH 6.8 Ammonia 2.0ppm Nitrites 2/5.0ppm Nitrates 40 ppm

Took fish out.

Day 3 PH 7.2 Ammonia 0.25ppm Nitrites 2/5.0ppm Nitrates 10/20ppm (again difficult to differentiate)

I think I know what readinge to look for to tell me my system is cycled, but have not been able to find any indications of what to look for once the fish are in. What should my daily/weekly readings be?

You don't have to wait for the urine to age... just take a wizz straight in the FT

For the future stock fish humonia has to be safer than using a dead fish.

You don't need huge amounts of Ammonia to cycle the system, 0.25 - 0.5 is fine. Once your Ammonia has peaked then dropped to 0.0 and the Nitrites have done the same... it's cycled.

Thanks Yabbies

Not necessarily correct yabbies. It is a good idea to age it. Firstly to kill off any E. Coli that may be present. It is also quicker to check you ammonia levels because you dont need to wait for the urea to convert to ammonia. TCLynx wrote up a good thread about this in her peeponics system. Worth a read.

Also with cycling, you want to see the ammonia converted to nitrates in 24 hours. in colder climates this can take a few ammonia peaks as the bacteria number increase.

It just takes a while longer for the Amm to show up... but it shows up. I know of a few systems that have been cycled by this method, a daily wizz in the tank until the Amm reaches about 0.5 max, stop wizzing, wait for the Amm and then Nitrites to peak and drop 0.0... fish added, usually a small Amm peak after for a day or two, returns to 0.0... system cycled. I saw one cycled using using this method a few months ago... and I know of another that is being cycled using this method as we speak.

I've read about ageing the urine for AP, but I've also seen a survival show on the telly where they claimed fresh urine is supposedly sterile, unless you have a urinary infection, but in that case you wouldn't consider using in your AP system. Whereas I would imagine leaving urine lying around for two weeks could provide an ideal culture for something nasty to make itself at home.

I totally agree.

Human urine, like any urine can have bacteria and viruses in it, therefore ageing I think is necessary.

Somehow people think urine is sterile, which is not always true. Ask any doctor.

I just bought a small box urea, threw it in the system and walked away until the system was ready,
a lot easier.



I think buying Ammonium nitrate in Australia may present some difficulties as well, but have you tried
buying urea?

I did read in a forum someone used cloudy ammonia to cycle their system (a cleaning product)
Would not be my first choice ever.





I would just leave the fish in until it completely dissolves.

The way I read your post, you have just started now. Today is day 3


A cycled system has built up a colony of "good" bacteria that can convert ammonia to nitrite to nitrate.

It takes a while for the bacteria to establish

My system took 6 weeks to grow enough bacteria (water temp 8 C ) it would be quicker at higher temps.

If you're only at day 3, I suspect the decomposing fish has supplied the ammonia, the nitrite and
the nitrate to your system.

Unless your media already had the bacteria on it.


To answer your question
What should my daily/weekly readings be?


A system has cycled when it has grown enough bacteria to be able to convert the ammonia (added to the system in a day) to nitrate the next day

This takes time.


cheers Lou

It certainly can be done by peeing directly into the water. There is no concern with getting ammonia. It is more about any infections etc that you might have.

http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2534&hilit=humonia

That is the thread i was talking about.

In regards to the shows you see on telly, then yes you would only drink fresh urine. You wouldnt want to pee in a bottle and sip it over the day. However that is comparing apples to oranges, in that you are using the urine for very different purposes.

With respect to the cycling method you mentioned, the fact that they are getting a small ammonia spike suggests that the system is not fully cycled to handle the load. It has cycled enough for the biofilter to quickly cope with the load, however it is usually suggested around here that 1ppm ammonia converted to nitrate in 24hrs is cycled. As i said, in colder climates that can take a few goes at spiking to 1ppm.

Dont get me wrong, i am not saying you are wrong. I am more arguing the semantics of 'cycled.' Not that it is defined at all.

Depending where you are systems take from 2 weeks to 2 months to cycle

Another vote for urea. It's readily available and works fine. Just don't go overboard.

If he can't get Ammonia due to govt' regulations... I'm pretty sure he won't be able to get urea!

Depends... is Urea used in the manufacture of drugs.... ....

Urea is commonly used as fertiliser... and you don't need much... surely it would be available in small packets????

I think at this stage it's always better to bring some facts to the discussion.

In 2007 Peru used 361,212 tonnes of Urea, therefore one can assume it is used extensively

to fertilize their fields.

I'd just ask a farmer for a handful.


http://data.mongabay.com/commodities/ca ... n/170-Peru


Just a quick internet search finds at least 10 companies in Peru that supply Urea.

Personally, if the dead fish worked I'd just throw in a couple of dead fish and come back in a month.

But if you wanted to source some Urea I would ring one of the companies

ie: http://www.alibaba.com/member/acareperu.html


contact details:

Mr. Amedeo Rocchi
(CEO)
Tel:
0051-1-4214530
Cell Phone:
0051 91061435
Fax:
0051-1-4214530
Street:
Av. Salaverry 2415. Oficina 305. San Isidro.
Country:
Peru
State:
Peru
City:
Lima


By speaking to one of the suppliers you will find out:

If you need a special permit to use ( doubtful )
where you can buy it
What name it goes by.(this is probably the most important)


I found all this out in 5 minutes sitting in my office in Melbourne Australia

You have to love the internet and globalization

cheers Lou

to start the cycle I just go and get some "feeder" fish from the local aquarium shop (the water they come in will have some bacteria) put in the tank, wait a week throw in a small amout of feed, wait a week see how many die, when you get a couple dead in the space of a day test for the presence of ammonia wait aweek test again put in fish, wait and see how long the feeder fish take to be eaten.

I know this is not really fishless cycling but it is fishless I want to keep cycling

That’s no more a fact than me saying he’d probably find it hard to get Urea if he can’t get legally buy Ammonia.

361,212 tonnes isn’t a lot, but what about mining?... one of the largest consumers of urea… which is used in the production of Ammonium Nitrate, an explosive extensively used in mining… and Peru has an extensive mining industry. In fact Peru is the largest Silver producer in the world… It’s also the third largest producer of Copper, Zinc and Tin… Fourth largest producer of Lead and Molybdenum… and the fifth largest producer of Gold in the world… there’s some facts for you to stick in your pipe.

Let's bring some more facts into the conversation…
That’s just the urea used by US farmers?... about 40x Peru’s entire consumption… but you try and buy urea from a garden centre in the US. Over the years that I've been reading this and other AP forums there have been scores of US AP'ers posting about using cloudy Ammonia etc because they can't source urea from a garden centre… try finding Urea on Home depot’s, Lowe’s or Walmart's websites.

Do you think if the government of a particular country has made it difficult to purchase Ammonia, without a licence, because of concerns over drug manufacture, or terrorism... that they are going to make it easy to access Urea?... if it is the case, then why bother making it difficult to access Ammonia in the first place

I don't give a flying f--- either way!... use piss, use urea, use dead rotten fish... I've seen and/or been told of a number of systems cycled using human urine... and I'm yet to see someone develop an illness from anything produced by those systems… but promoting the use of rotten fish is just mental IMO, once a serious fish disease is introduced into a closed system it can be very difficult to eradicate.

It was probably only 12-18 months ago I mentioned on here about using Urea for cycling and was set-upon by the purple circle… now Urea and dead fish are being promoted for cycling systems… but Humonia is now taboo. I’d be more worried about what a dead rotting fish could introduce into a system, as opposed to the urine from a healthy person.

All that's needed is a well designed system, with clean, aged water, stocked sensibly from day one... and let the fish cycle it.

Seriously ?

The reference that I used and supplied was from the:

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)






Again, from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) the amount
of Urea used in Peru for Non-fertilizer use is ZERO. (no data was available)



ref: http://data.mongabay.com/commodities/ca ... e/170-Peru









This was posted by Jake on this very thread, and Jake lives in Nashville, Tennessee


Furthermore, a quick look at Ebay USA finds you can buy nearly a kilo of urea from
a supplier in Idaho Falls, Idaho, United States


http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/UREA-NITROGE ... 51a08bb2a0