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How much urine is enough to help do a quick fish-less cycle in a 55gal aquarium?
I'd heard about doing fish-less cycling when setting up aquariums, and someone mentioned ammonia would be needed and that urine(from humans at least) is good enough. But how much for my 55 gallon freshwater. I've added no fish yet, had the tank running 24 hrs. I've got fine sand as my substrate, I've got a Fluval 405 Canister filter and a Penguin 350 Bio Wheel filter running. I've added 3 Tetra products; Easy Balance, SafeStart, and Aqua Safe. So with the SafeStart containing Bio-Spira which should speed up the bacteria growth all i need is ammonia(via urine) and it should get the bacteria growing pretty fast right? Oh, I also added a few pinches of Fish food to aid in feeding any bacteria. But again how much Urine will equal the right amount of Ammonia. Any tips or advice is appreciated.
And i've only got one Kidney! so even harder to gauge huh!
2 Answers
- Gary CLv 71 decade agoFavorite Answer
I don't know, and I'm not sure I want to know.
This is the kind of experiment you can only do if you live alone, because it is sure to gross out everybody else.
As you say, though, it should work. Urine does break down into ammonia (and some other stuff, but mainly ammonia) fairly quickly.
If you really want to do it that way, start with a couple of spoonfuls of urine. Use your ammonia test kit after a day or two. If the test doesn't show ammonia in the water, gradually increase the amount of urine until you get a reading in the range of 6 ppm ammonia. The ammonia level should drop as nitrite starts to appear in your tests. Try to keep the ammonia at around 6-10 ppm until you start detecting nitrate with your test kit. Then you can stop adding ammonia. When ammonia and nitrite read zero, and nitrate is above zero, your tank has cycled.
Did I mention you need a test kit to do fishless cycling?
Oh, and you don't need to add fish food AND ammonia or urine. It's one or the other (because fish food, like urine, breaks down into ammonia).
- 1 decade ago
"This is the kind of experiment you can only do if you live alone" - Awesome statement.
There are too many variables to give an exact amount. I think your urine is even going to fluctuate throughout the day, depending on how hydrated you are. The level of urea in your urine will dictate how much ammonia will be given off.
