Enriched microbial communities for ammonium and nitrite removal from recirculating aquaculture systems

Alireza Neissi, Gholamreza Rafiee*, Shadi Rahimi*, Hamid Farahmand, Santosh Pandit, Ivan Mijakovic*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

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Abstract

The aim of this study was the enrichment of high-performance microbial communities in biofilters for removal of ammonium and nitrite from aquaculture water. Ammonium oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB) were enriched from different environmental water samples. The microbial communities with higher ammonium and nitrite removal activity were selected and adapted to different temperatures [9 °C, 15 °C, room temperature (25 °C), and 30 °C]. The expression of genes involved in nitrification including ammonia monooxygenase (AMO) and nitrite oxidoreductase (NXR) were measured in temperature-adapted AOB and NOB microbiomes. The microbial species present in the selected microbiomes were identified via 16s rRNA sequencing. The microbial communities containing Nitrosomonas oligotropha and Nitrobacter winogradskyi showed the highest ammonium and nitrite removal activity at all temperatures used for adaptation. Furthermore, the microbial communities do not contain any pathogenic bacteria. They also exhibited the highest expression of AMO and NXR genes. Using the enriched microbial communities, we achieved a 288% and 181% improvement in ammonium and nitrite removal over the commonly used communities in biofilters at 9 °C, respectively. These results suggest that the selected microbiomes allowed for a significant improvement of water quality in a recirculating aquaculture system (RAS).

Original languageEnglish
Article number133811
JournalChemosphere
Volume295
Number of pages11
ISSN0045-6535
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Keywords

  • AOB and NOB Microbiome enrichment
  • Aquaculture biofilter water
  • Nitrobacter winogradskyi
  • Nitrosomonas oligotropha
  • Temperature adaptation

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