people pee vs. fish pee

[Tostada]

Waiting for my tank to finish cycling, and I thought back to a few years ago in college...

I had two roommates. One was a great guy. One was a really obnoxions hypochondriac. He was obnoxious for a lot of reasons other than being a hypochondriac, he just happened to also always be whining about health concerns. So one day when I was done working on a chem lab, I peed in an Erlenmeyer Flask and left it on top of the TV, since he mostly watched TV when he was around (incessantly commenting on how dumb he thought what he was watching was).

Mr. Obnoxious refused to touch it, so nobody disposed of it, and it only took a couple days until there was definitely something growing on the surface. By the end of a week, it looked like some kind of dead white jellyfish. At that point I finally dumped it out and threw it away.

Anyway, I was thinking of that, and I thought human urine had ammonia in it, but I just did some looking, and I guess it's not really ammonia. It's kind of like neutralized ammonia (human urine contains urea, which is its own molecule).

So, I was just wondering if anybody knew about the bacteria that grew in human urine vs. the bacteria that get rid of ammonia in an aquarium.

I was thinking that would be really funny if peeing in an aquarium could jump-start the nitrogen cycle. It looks like that's not the case, but I was just curious if anybody knew anything about it.

 

[Creamhorses]

My first concern about this experiment is that I might fall off the ladder while setting up for the dose.

#2 As fish keeping is an equal opportunity hobby, I'd be curious as to how you'd include females to participate.

Ain't college kuel?

CH

 

[JRagg]

Fresh urine is sterile and may be used as an antiseptic - for the sterilization, the urine has to flow directly from the urethra onto the wound. It is important to know that once the urine has left the body, it becomes an ideal breeding ground for a wide range of quasi omnipresent bacteria, which multiply in it at an astonishing speed. Urine which is older than a minute is not anymore suitable for consumption, and should not even be taken for exterior use.

Urine is sterile. It has a lot of "food for bacteria", but it itself is sterile at first.

Wiki Link

 

[Devilishturtles]

Urine is sterile if the person it is coming from is healthy. Just wanted to point that out. You never want to consume or use it in an external fashion if the person is sick.

So, I was just wondering if anybody knew about the bacteria that grew in human urine vs. the bacteria that get rid of ammonia in an aquarium.

That's an interesting question. Urine contains ammonium ions (different than ammonia, NH3) not ammonia. Ammonia only comes about after being exposed to oxygen. I think it would take some time for this to happen. A few minutes atleast.

To answer your question, there shouldn't bacteria in your urine. In a fishtank, bacteria forms when ammonia breaks down into nitrite and nitrate. You aren't really dumping bacteria into a tank when you cycle it, but rather building up your army of denitrifiers(what happens when ammonia breaks down into nirtire and nitrate) to keep ammonia levels from rising.

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong...but I hope this explains your question a little. I'm no microbiologist though.

 

[BillD]

Urea is ammonium nitrate, if I remeber correctly. It is the nitrogen portion of most fertilizers. In granular form, it is around 45% nitrogen.

 

[JustOneMore20]

That would make sense BillD. I am taking microbiology this summer and we studied the enzyme urease, which some bacteria posess. It liberates ammonia from urea, which is found in urine. Urine is sterile in healthy people. I would think that after sitting open for a while bacteria builds up in it (from the air or whatever) and some posess urease which then liberate the ammonia. Thats why when a baby wears a urine soaked diaper for awhile they have that ammonia smell to them. Its not the urine, but the bacteria that build up in the diaper after awhile. But, you wouldn't always have bacteria that have urease, so you wouldn't always get ammonia from urine.

 

[hc8719]

...you peed in a flask?

 

[Musket]

And let it sit there until it grew... hummmm, glad you aren't my roomie! hahahaha
good question though... so the consensus is that it probably wouldn't work to help the fish tank cycle?

 

[JDogg]

funny...while setting up my 75 gal. my wife suggested i "jump start" the cycle by peeing in the tank.... so i could move my fish from my 28 gal accross town to the new house...

i did not try it though

 

[toddnbecka]

Fish produce ammonia as a by-product of respiration, more comes from their gills than from their digestive system.

 

[TomK2]

Ammonia is highly toxic to mammals, so that the mamallian livers changes ammonia into Urea. Urea is not ammonia. However, in the real world, urea is acted upon by bacteria, and ammonia is a by-product of urea degredation. But, adding urea to a tank is not the same as adding ammonia, and is somewat gross too.

Urea=Carbamide= (NH2)2CO or CON2H4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urea

 

[Alshain]

Seriously now, would you really consider cycling a tank with urine even if you could? If someone told me I could either take a leak in the tank or use a bottle of store bought ammonia, it would be the ammonia every time.

 

[JustOneMore20]

I second that Alshain.

 

[Tostada]

Seriously now, would you really consider cycling a tank with urine even if you could? If someone told me I could either take a leak in the tank or use a bottle of store bought ammonia, it would be the ammonia every time.

I just said it would be funny if it worked. I'm not actually peeing on my fish ... and the flask thing was an isolated incident.

Hypothetically speaking, though, if peeing in the tank was the same as using store-bought ammonia ... I suppose I'd save a couple bucks.

 

[Shelby_Tempo_GT]

your container was contaminated.

if you were to really to a scientific test, you would taken it from an autoclave first.

 

[jibboo]

Seriously now, would you really consider cycling a tank with urine even if you could? If someone told me I could either take a leak in the tank or use a bottle of store bought ammonia, it would be the ammonia every time.

cmon Alshain ... most of us aquarists are cheapos ... pee is cheaper than buying something. And whoever mentioned the ladder ... LOL ... you could just use a cup ... ya know ... like at the doctors office?

I think the biology of the concept is very interesting, just wished I didn't hear what triggered the thought for the this

 

[Ferret_Friend]

I just said it would be funny if it worked. I'm not actually peeing on my fish

Sigged!

 

[Bhunsucker]

DO NOT PEE IN YOUR FISH TANK!!!!

Get some seeded media from a friend or LSF but dont tank a Piss in the tank!!

 

[JustOneMore20]

I don't think any of them are planning on peeing in their tanks.

if you were to really to a scientific test, you would taken it from an autoclave first

I think he peed in a flask to make his roommate freak out...not to do a test. And even if the container was sterile before the pee, if you leave it out uncovered for awhile, bacteria will grow in it. There is bacteria in the air....so it would probably find its way to the pee.

 

[Devilishturtles]

Ditto. I don't think anyone was planning on actually doing this, but was just asking the question. I think it was an interesting question and I enjoyed reading the responses.