Effect of trophic environment in TAN removal efficiency in a fractal filter media (UAEMex-1)  

Tzolkin Rossel-Mendoza*, Iván Gallego-Alarcón and Daury García-Pulido.
Centro Interamericano en Recursos del Agua
Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México
Toluca, Estado de México.
iga@uaemex.mx

With the idea of ​​innovating technologies that makes recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) currently used more efficient, the objective of this study was evaluate the removal efficiency of Total Ammonia Nitrogen (TAN) in different trophic environments. To meet this objective, the UAEMex-1 media filter was used in a 120 days laboratory trail. This new media filter was designed from a fractal concept that warranties more surface area compared with media developed from Euclidian geometry.

Nine trickling filters were constructed to evaluate the media, each with different media volume (surface area available in the filter). The experimental design consisted in three treatments with three repetitions. Each treatment was fed with water synthetically prepared which had a concentration of 0.6, 1.0 and 1.6 mg/L of ammonium chloride, this to emulate the main trophic environment in a cold water fish farms (temperature bellow 15ºC).

The TAN removal efficiency hadn't significant difference between the treatments (p ≤ 0.001); an average of 44.5% ± 6.01 TAN removal. This implies that there is no effect of the trophic environment in the nitrification process been done in the media. The TAN removal efficiency in the trickling filters was according with cold-water conditions. However the dimensions of the trickling filters were smaller do to the bigger surface area of the media.

As observed in this study the filter media showed competence as a substrate for biological filters. As additional data it was noted that the colonies of nitrifying bacteria proliferated satisfactorily on the walls of the filter media UAEMex-1. The importance of this study is that the development of aquaculture, currently, requires the innovation of technologies to meet the new expectations of this activity.