Could I use sheep poo pelets as fertilizer for root feeders?

I think I see one inventive business plan going down the drain now!

Could it be possible to mineralize those natural pellets similar to what we do with soils? (That could get the business plan up and running again!)

About that livestock.....I have a problem seeing a market for mineralized cow poo.

"Mineralizing" means converting the organic nitrogen or ammonia and urea in the substance to inorganic nitrogen, like KNO3. With soils you basically keep it wet for a few days, then dry it in the sun. It's a bit more complicated, but that is the basic principle.

duzzy said:

Hi hoppycalf,

so if I soak it then dry it in the sun would that do it?

Regards Darren

Click to expand...

Good question! If I were going to try this I think I would soak them, dry them and repeat a couple more times. Then I would put a few in a container of water and check it for ammonia after a few days. I can tell you for sure that I am not going to try it!

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...d-soil-substrate-aaron-talbot.html#post393395 is an article on the general subject.

No doubt soaking will leach some of the ammonia and urea out of the pellets, so I agree with HeyPK that keeping them damp rather than in water would more likely work well. The first time I used river silt as a lower level of my substrate I only soaked it for a few days, and only one time, then dumped the water and used the silt wet. My aquarium smelled very bad for a few days after I filled it, but the smell did go away. So, I assume I still had ammonia when I started using it.

Since you want to poke the pellets into the substrate, where they will be covered with the substrate, some ammonia and urea probably won't do any harm. The real problems show up if you later expose one of them to the water above the substrate. That is a great way to learn about green water and try out the many methods for getting rid of it.