Efficacy of Sewage Treated Water on Fish Growth Performance and its Physicochemical characteristics

Author: Reecha, Rachna Gulati and Poonam Devi

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Abstract

In the rapidly urbanizing world, freshwater shortage has been the major concern. On the other hand, there is growing realization to increase aquaculture productivity for food and nutritional security. Therefore, the concept of using wastewater for aquaculture is very much relevant to enhance the productivity. The water quality directly influences the fish's growth rate, health, survival and economics of the aquaculture sector. Despite being a rich source of nutrients, the presence of pathogenic microbes and heavy metals in the sewage water may distress the fishes affecting their health and worsening the conditions more. The present review is an attempt to collect all the available literature on fish survival and growth in sewage treated water, water quality parameters, presence of microbial count, heavy metals, their effect on different fish species and biological treatment of sewage treated water to optimize the conditions for fish growth.

Keywords

Aquaculture, growth, heavy metals, microbial load, sewage treated water

Conclusion

The present review concludes that to reduce the dependency on freshwater aquaculture, different species of fishes are suitable to grow fishes in sewage treated water. In the context of freshwater scarcity, application of sewage in aquaculture ensures water conservation, apart acting as a fertilizer in the culture pond. One of the major hurdle in expanding aquaculture in the present day is the high cost of supplementary feed. And the implementation of sewage in the fisheries sector has proven to be a successful method in boosting the economics of the farmers because it enhances planktonic density and thereby, provides a huge amount of natural foods for fish along with sustainable water productivity. With a high growth performance and great survivability factor, there is an increase in overall yield of the fishes in a harvest season. It is also imperative to note that azolla culture can significantly improve the water quality parameters and reduce the heavy metal concentration in sewage treated water making the sewage treated water suitable for the culture.

References

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How to cite this article

Reecha, Rachna Gulati and Poonam Devi (2022). Efficacy of Sewage Treated Water on Fish Growth Performance and its Physicochemical characteristics. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 14(4): 456-463.