Couldn't I just pee in my tank?

[scavdog]

I got a buddy into the hobby 15 years ago. After explaining the ammonia cycle to him, he did just that: P!ssed in the tank. It cycled and nothing bad happened. Your mileage may vary!

 

[Daddy-o]

But yes you can pee outside to mark your territory keeping smaller critters away but somtimes drawing in bigger critter like bears as they see it as a treat to there area

Our friends were having issues with deer eating the roses. They sprayed coyote urine as a deterrent. Problem was it attracted a coyote that ate the dog.

 

[blasterman]

You can certainly pee in your tank if you want to!!
It’s your tank!! Lol! I’d probably opt for some Ammonium Chloride though. Keep this in mind if you decide to pee in your tank.
Fresh human urine is sterile and so free from bacteria. Only when it is older than 24 hours, the urea turns into ammonia, which is what causes the distinctive smell. Antibiotics, vitamin supplements, and other medications will end up in your urine, but in such minute quantities as to be negligible, especially when diluted with water.

BRS will likely do a video on how you need to buy their pee vs using your own.

 

[Spare time]

You can certainly pee in your tank if you want to!!
It’s your tank!! Lol! I’d probably opt for some Ammonium Chloride though. Keep this in mind if you decide to pee in your tank.
Fresh human urine is sterile and so free from bacteria. Only when it is older than 24 hours, the urea turns into ammonia, which is what causes the distinctive smell. Antibiotics, vitamin supplements, and other medications will end up in your urine, but in such minute quantities as to be negligible, especially when diluted with water.

Is that the new trace element solution?

 

[ScubaFish802]

A member on this site just posted here this week or last week. He found out / caught his nephews peeing in his sump ;Wideyed

 

[fishguy242]

A member on this site just posted here this week or last week. He found out / caught his nephews peeing in his sump ;Wideyed

read that...don't do it

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

I didn't read the thread but do it for science!

 

[kchristensen8064]

There is a guy in our local club that swears by it. Setting up a new tank his first recommendation is to pee in it!

 

[ScubaFish802]

Edit: Saw someone linked the post above already

 

[Gernader]

Edit: Saw someone linked the post above already

It’s this thread lol

Build Thread - Urgh seriously.

Hello, First, please forgive me if I posted this in the wrong section, but I have never had this happen before and I am panicking. So I have a 240 gallon tank with a 75 gallon sump tank. To be nice I let my brother and his children stay in my home for this week. (Long story) I just came home...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[KrisReef]

What would a scientist do?
Maybe just cycling an old rock collection in a barrel in the garage, actually for months. Get drinking heavy for 3 or 12 days? The memory is kind of fuzzy about this story. The barrel had been growing chaeto under a light to remove phosphates for more that a year and the whole system was fairly clean and very stable. After reading the previously mentioned wee little thread, my little nephew emptied into the bucket as the beginning of a highly unscientific enquiry into the impacts of beer whiz into a stable, low nutrient system.

Within a week the stable system was blown up with (what looked like dino's) but no one wanted to dip a slide into the bucket to slap under a scope, so we only know it looked like a dino outbreak for a couple of weeks. Then the hair algae over took parts of the chaeto, followed by slime algae and all that interaction caused a population explosion of tiny starfish that had hitchhiked on the chaeto, and those were mostly replaced by tiny limpets and the hair algae slowly dies and the chaeto never really recovered.

Now the bucket doesn't look pristine as it once did, and it needs to be drained to restart the water quality minus human metabolites before the rock goes anywhere near a reef tank.

Number one observation in a limited reef bucket turned symple pristine system into a toilet. Unpublished data, pers com.

 

[ScubaFish802]

It’s this thread lol

Yes, my bad haha

 

[Brew12]

Not a super serious question but a thought, and wondering if anyone's tried something like this at all.

If not one answers I won't be offended haha.

At least it's funny/interesting to me.

In first setting up and cycling a tank, could you technically use Urine to start the cycle, or do you think other trace toxins in your urine might ruin it? I've maybe read long time ago or heard about "my friend did", but has anyone personally done it?

What if you drank 2 gallons a day for 2 days before doing this? anyway. Just a thought.

Some old school aquarists swear by this to cycle a new tank. No reason I know of why it wouldn't work.

 

[Doctorgori]

Unless you are on birth control pills, in addition to ammonia, #1 only tints the water, whereas No#2 adds movement...

 

[Chessmanmark]

It gets a mention in Saltwater for Dummies.

 

[ichthyoid]

Fish eliminate excess nitrogen by diffusing ammonia out via their gills.

Humans, being mammals, excrete excess nitrogen as urea via their urine.

An additional step, & enzyme, is required to convert urea to ammonia. Bacteria will appear and do this, whether intentionally added or not.

So, in summary, urine requires an additional step which will be provided by bacteria, regardless.

 

[Tankkeepers]

This has turned into quite the educational and comical post learning and laughing what a good comb

 

[shakygator]

I remember when I first started my reef in 2015 that one of the videos I watched mentioned pee parties to start a saltwater tank in the 70's.

Over the years I have definitely heard that this was the old school method to starting a tank cycle, so I totally believe this occurred ESPECIALLY in the 70s.

 

[a4edwin]

I’m pretty sure there was a super long thread on here last year about a members nephews who peed in her sump

Needless to say it was an...interesting read

I was going to hold it till I read thru the thread then I ran into your post.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

Every knows you don't pee in your tank. You pee in the tank of the guy that have you aptasia.