Nitrification in recirculating aquaculture plants
23 June 2020, by PD Dr. Eva Spieck
Due to the rapidly increasing world population aquaculture became an essential industrial sector for the production of animal proteins. In recirculating aquaculture plants, nitrification is essential for N-removal to prevent accumulation of harmful ammonia and nitrite. Community analyses identified the core-taxa of freshwater, brackish and marine biofilters with Nitrosomonas and Nitrospira as main ammonia and nitrite oxidizers. Salinity tolerance tests showed an unexpected broad physiological flexibility with regard to salinity in marine and brackish biofilters, whereas nitrification performance of freshwater nitrifiers was drastically reduced with increasing salinity. Share our article "Taxonomic and functional profiling of nitrifying biofilms in freshwater, brackish and marine RAS biofilters" recently published in Aquacultural Engineering.