Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

one other thing to be carefull with manure from shearing sheds, stables and the like is that sheep, horses cows ect are all drenched with worm killing "medcine"

i think it breaks down over time but not sure how long (and would depend on the chemicals/brand )so the fresh stuff might not always good to give to your worm farm

Cheers

Doctors use urine samples for drug tests,liver tests,etc,etc ,so some bad things must escape our bodies through our urine!

niloc, i'm sure right at the begining of the thread some one (probably JP) stated that it should be from a healthy drug free person

but yes, you're right.

i just fertilized my lemon tree

Watch out for the thorns F&F

Here I am hoping to revive this thread and find out what other new experiments may be going with peePonics.

To touch on the safety issues and my views on this. I understand that in the past, urine was regularly used to sterilize wounds. (again small boys were often asked to preform the service since it might be difficult to pee on your own wound and propriety probably made it inapproptiate to ask another adult to do such a thing and it is easier for boys to direct the flows than it is for girls.) Anyway, I have also found that fecal contamination is far less likely if you wipe in the correct direction. I've also found that I'm going to be very careful about causing such contamination as it usually means almost immediate (within 8 hours) terrible urinary tract infection. I find such an experience so terrible that I go to great lengths to avoid them. I also know very well when I have such.

Anyway, I understand people who need to go to extra safety lengths for imune reasons so in that case, you must do as you must.

As to the rest of us. I see such a source of plant nutrients to be a terrible thing to waste (and the fact that wasting it usually means polluting an otherwise clean bowl of drinking water to carry it away and in turn pollute the water supplies with it.)

Have there been any new experiments using urine as the primary nutrient source? Any new developments about balancing the pH?

Another thing I though might be of import. If some one has a situation where they can't have a huge fish tank but needs to grow a large amount of veggies, urine might make some sense to allow for smaller tanks.

Go for it TC, I don't think anyone has tried it here yet, but it makes sense to me. There should be minerals and salts and whatnot in it too that may be some good for plants. Maybe use it to grow fodder rather than food directly, I would think that would insulate things from being too intimate with our bodily wastes. Take one for the team!

Dave Donley,
My household is not too worried about the intimate details (we are humanure composters and well aware of the safety side of things and not fecophobic.) The trick is a good portion of urine is still needed for the compost to keep things hot and active.

Anyway, I've got a hydroponic set up outdoors that isn't really being utilized for much at the moment. I chucked a few seedlings into it and some pond plants that I rescued from a trash bag at the curb. I think I just need to set up a few grow beds for F & D with appropriate media to get the bacteria populations going. For the Hydro I had been using organic media like wood chip mulch since it seemed to help keep the pH down for the hydroponics. I've since decided that cucumbers do just as well in ground here so no need to do them in Hydro.

So, I just need to choose an appropriate media. (I have half a bag of coarse perlite left but I might just save that for indoors.) Sand is plentiful/free in my yard here so I'll have to test some of that. Otherwise I'll be doing some local searching to see what is cheap and appropriate. I've seen references about using stuff to help buffer the pH up. I'm on well water that seems to be slightly above neutral. How much buffering am I likely to need to do? If I could get limestone gravel cheap, would that be a good thing or bad? Or should that only be used sparingly? Any tips on good media to use here in the SE US?

Ya know, I think I should make a whole new thread for this. PeePonics sound like a good title?

Buffering: given time, all systems will need some buffering to bring their pH up. If your water has high buffering already (different from pH), then it may take quite a while with a large fishload before you need to bring pH up. Over time, a mature system will drop in pH, so having a large amount of stable buffering would be nice.

Media: Use what you can get cheaply. Some folks have a few sand beds, but they drain slowly, so you probably can't flood them very often.

Calcium Carbonate (crushed coral, crushed oyster shell, limestone) should buffer your pH to about 7.6. That would be OK, but a slightly lower pH would be better. (I try to keep mine at 7.0). If limestone gravel is cheap, then go ahead and use it. I have 28 pounds of crushed coral in my system, but it doesn't do any good for the pH anymore. Theory is that I wore it out! I recently added about a liter of crushed oyster shell, and that seems to be helping my pH out. I have to watch my pH a bit carefully--the system is mature enough that it keeps trying to drop.

River gravel is cheap here--it's quartz-based rock. Perhaps down your way your river gravel is limestone?

was wondering if you tried that after the stuff i posted good to hear.

I prolly just missed it in your thread.