Disgusting and Gross, but is it possible to pee in your tank?

Years ago in the fresh water side of the hobby urinating in your tank to stimulate bacteria growth was an accepted practice. However the tanks were set up with dry sand and bleach cleaned decorations. It really was an almost sterile environment with little to stimulate the growth of beneficial bacteria. With live sand and/or live rock in a saltwater tank there should be no reason to add an additional ammonia source.

Unless of course you enjoy peeing in your tank and then reaching in it to re-aquascape. I'll pass on that option ;) .
 
my vote for thread of the month

Everybody knows that a thread without pics cannot be named thread of the month. With some pics of some good looking female reefers this thread would become extremely popular, besides being a little interesting.
 
I think that you also have to drop a deus in the tank for that to work.
Roflmao
A.that would stink for weeks,
B.you could never reach in there ever again
C.deus is a latin word, and if you were to add one of those, same results
D. I will stick with shrimp.
 
thank you everyone i am at work it is 232am and i am cracking up at how many responses this got. I love my reef but not enough to want to stick my hand or arm back in it after peeing in it. i definitly wouldnt pee in the toilet then stick my hand in it that would be wierd. ha good luck with this
 
I don't think human urine contains much ammonia if any


Ummm yes it does, ammonia is a by product of protein breakdown it is the reason why people with kidney failure have to get dialysis to remove excess ammonia, and creatine as well as other byproducts. people begin to get acidodic and hyperventilate something called kussmal respirations. look it up. As for the amount of ammonia in urine I dont know but it seems like shrimp work well enough people are always trying to rush things there is no quick way to have a fully cycled tank patience is key. can you pee in your tank sure...but you can also add ammonia or shrimp and have a tank cycle at about the same rate. I guess what im trying to say is be patient and dont try to rush things.
 
interesting thread, i used 20 shrimp in my 650 system, a lot of people said not o.. i waited 2 months to cycle and now have 3 fish in there
 
added ammonia

added ammonia

Well I didn't Pee but I added ammonia to my tank using the Ammonia calculator above in this thread. Based on my tank volume of 60 gallons I needed 45 ml of Ammonia to get it to 5ppm.

Here is the result...
<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/E9YErn0r47APrEJbooBWFA?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_NXpuq2m0IHc/TQ7zGgOLzUI/AAAAAAAADIc/QOGjIOv5w6Q/s800/P1050263.JPG" height="800" width="600" /></a>


So if my bacteria is working how long should it take to remove that much ammonia?
 
my cycle of 50lbs of DR in a 22g rubbermaid tote took right about 14days. amm from 10 to 0, nitrite positive to 0, nitrate to 160ppm.

i've since took out about 20lbs of rock and have remaining 30lbs of rock. i can add about 5ppm of ammonia and it will process that to 0 in less than 24hrs.

Try to put your water heater on to about 85 degrees. that will help accelerate bacteria growth. It'll probably take about a week for the nitrifying bacteria to establish and remove the ammonia.
 
my cycle of 50lbs of DR in a 22g rubbermaid tote took right about 14days. amm from 10 to 0, nitrite positive to 0, nitrate to 160ppm.

i've since took out about 20lbs of rock and have remaining 30lbs of rock. i can add about 5ppm of ammonia and it will process that to 0 in less than 24hrs.

Try to put your water heater on to about 85 degrees. that will help accelerate bacteria growth. It'll probably take about a week for the nitrifying bacteria to establish and remove the ammonia.

Thanks for the info geaux_xman!
 
Ok, be careful. What you're planning on doing is pretty much exactly what I did, detailed in this thread.

Ok, so my water is solid black, now what?

I used dry MarcoRocks exclusively, cranked up the heaters, I actually did add just a touch of ammonia (not the store bought kind, if you get my drift) and half a teaspoon of sugar to kick it off, and:

01-11-08_1733.jpg


Completely anoxic. There's no need to add shrimp or anything else with dry, dead Marco Rocks, there's tons of dead stuff in there anyway, even if you go over it while it's dry and pick off the obvious dead stuff. Aerate the hell out of the water to prevent this from happening (it stinks)!
 
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