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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Gary Caldwell, Professor Selina Stead
This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by Elsevier, 2018.
For re-use rights please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.
Reducing dependency on environmentally unsustainable formulated feeds, most of which include C/N ratio; deposit feeder; stoichiometry; sustainable aquaculture; recirculating aquaculture system; sediment; sandfishlimited reserves of fishmeal as a protein source, is a priority for the aquaculture industry, particularly for intensive culture systems. One approach is to increase nitrogen reuse within the system by feeding nitrogen-rich aquaculture effluent to deposit feeders, thereby closing the aquaculture nitrogen-loop. This study, for the first time and on a laboratory-scale, has reared juveniles of the sea cucumber Holothuria scabra at high densities solely on particulate organic waste from a commercial-scale land-based abalone recirculating aquaculture system. Furthermore, growth rates and biomass yields were increased significantly by adjusting the effluent C:N from 5:1 to 20:1 by adding exogenous organic carbon sources (glucose, starch and cellulose), so fuelling accelerated heterotrophic bacterial production within the redox-stratified tank sediment. Sea cucumber juveniles reared solely on effluent had a biomass density of 711 g m-2 after four months whereas animals reared on starch-amended effluent (the best performing treatment) had a final density of 1,011 g m-2. Further optimisation of this approach could increase biomass yields and pave the way for the commercial cultivation of deposit feeding animals on waste streams, thus contributing to more environmentally sustainable aquaculture. Here, the nitrogen that originated from fishmeal is not lost through the discharge of aquaculture effluent; rather, it is immobilised into single cell biomass that is up-cycled into high-value secondary biomass. We demonstrate that sea cucumber juveniles can be produced at high density through the manipulation of the C:N ratio of aquaculture effluent.
Author(s): Robinson G, Caldwell GS, Jones CLW, Stead SM
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Aquaculture
Year: 2018
Volume: 499
Pages: 101-108
Print publication date: 15/01/2019
Online publication date: 15/09/2018
Acceptance date: 12/09/2018
Date deposited: 13/09/2018
ISSN (electronic): 0044-8486
Publisher: Elsevier
URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2018.09.024
DOI: 10.1016/j.aquaculture.2018.09.024
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