Industrial Ozone Generators for Aquaculture Applications

Aquaculture Water Treatment Overview

Ozone generators are used in aquaculture and aquafarming to improve water quality, enhance water treatment system efficiency and reduce pathogens. Bacterial and viral diseases create serious problems in semi-intensive and intensive aquaculture. Use of surface water in flow-through systems represents a risk of contamination by introducing waterborne fish pathogenic microorganisms. Such contamination results in heavy losses in aquaculture worldwide, and has also limited the progress in commercial farming of new aquacultural species. Some commercial operations may be required to disinfect their discharge waters before release into the aquatic environment. Of serious concern are dependable means of controlling pathogens present in the inlet water. Disinfection by ozonation or UV-irradiation are two methods often applied in aquaculture. It is important to distinguish between disinfection of makeup waters (low organic loads) and recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) waters.

Both applications are discussed in this chapter. Disinfection by ozonation and UV-irradiation are also used in other aquacultural applications, e.g., reducing or eliminating potential pathogens associated with live prey such as rotifers in marine larval production systems, and surface disinfection of fish eggs. The discussion on this and subsequent pages will focus on the use of ozone in aquaculture.

Ozone Generators for Aquaculture Water Treatment

Ozone has seen wide use in aquaculture because it has a rapid reaction rate, produces few harmful reaction by-products in freshwater and oxygen is produced as a reaction end-product. It is an extremely reactive oxidant and a very effective bactericide and viricide. Ozone can also be used to achieve water quality improvements by micro flocculating fine particulate matter (making particles that are easier to settle or filter) and oxidizing non biodegradable organic molecules (creating smaller and more biodegradable molecules), nitrite, and refractory organic molecules (reducing water color) (Summerfelt and Hochheimer, 1997; Summerfelt et al. 1997).

Application of ozone to aquaculture requires ozone generation, ozone transfer into solution, contact time for ozone to react and disinfect, and possibly ozone destruction to ensure that no ozone residual makes it into the culture tanks (Summerfelt and Hochheimer, 1997).

Additional links about ozone generator use in aquaculture water treatment:

• Ozone Generation (Ozone Generators)
• Ozone Transfer into Water (Mixing/Contacting)
• Materials of Constructions
• Ozone Inactivation of Fish Pathogens
• Ozone Destruction
• Spartan Industrial Ozone Generators
• Residual Ozone Measurements
• Ozone Water Quality Issues in Aquaculture
• Ozone Safety

Spartan Environmental Technologies is a supplier of complete industrial ozone generator systems for a wide range of applications including aquaculture. For more information on ozone generators for aquaculture call us at 800-492-1252 or e-mail us at info@SpartanWaterTreatment.com

Acknowledgement

This information has been excerpted with permission from the book: “Recirculating Aquaculture Systems, 2nd Edition”, M. B. Timmons, et al, 2002, Cayuga Aqua Ventures, Ithaca, NY. Additional text and links have been inserted to indicate where additional information on related topics can be found within the website.

(To obtain more information on recirculating aquaculture systems, a complete set of tables and figures from the book and to obtain the references shown on this and related pages please refer to the book. If you need engineering assistance with an aquaculture process you can obtain help at Holder Timmons Engineering, a complete engineering service company for aquaculture. Their web address is www.holdertimmons.com.)