Abstract
Effluents from land-based mariculture have a deleterious environmental impact by enriching littoral waters with particulate and dissolved nutrients. The use of suspension-feeders (e.g. bivalves) in biofiltration systems provides an inexpensive option for the biological removal of these nutrients from effluent water.
Land-based facilities are safer because the quality of the incoming water can be controlled, and integrated polyculture systems can save resources, diversify the product, allow intensification, and are environmentally friendly, thus offering a valid alternative to open sea monoculture.
Several approaches have been developed to reach this goal. These approaches are based on the use of algae and invertebrates as biofilters, which remove the dissolved and particulate nutrients from fishpond effluents. Sunlight-dependent assimilation turns excess nutrients into microalgae biomass, which is then consumed with other organic particulate matter by the invertebrates.
These systems consist of three units: a) a fish or shrimp culture unit, b) an earthen pond that serves as both a microalgal production and a bivalve culture unit, and c) a seaweed biofilter unit. Microalgae, especially benthic diatoms, are responsible for most of the nutrient uptake. The main cultured herbivores are filter-feeding bivalves, which grow in the earthen pond. The seaweed biofilter strips the remaining dissolved nutrients from the effluents. The harvested yields (fish, bivalve and seaweed) contain 63% of the nitrogen introduced into the system, particulate matter (faeces and uneaten feed) contain 33%, and suspended and dissolved outflow, approximately 4% of the nitrogen budget. More complex systems require highly skilled operators and more sophisticated technology, but they provide increased product diversity. Depending on practical factors such as market prices, quality and cost of labor, seed and fingerlings supply, environmental conditions, market size and property cost, the operational protocol can be shifted between the three product types (fish, algae and invertebrates) to maximize profits.
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Shpigel, M. (2005). Bivalves as Biofilters and Valuable Byproducts in Land-Based Aquaculture Systems. In: Dame, R.F., Olenin, S. (eds) The Comparative Roles of Suspension-Feeders in Ecosystems. NATO Science Series IV: Earth and Environmental Series, vol 47. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3030-4_11
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