review · Aquaculture and Fisheries
Public policy increasingly restricts aquaculture effluent discharge, driving the demand for cleaner and more efficient fish farming techniques. Recirculating aquaculture systems conserve water by treating and reusing effluent, and moving bed bioreactors are well suited for maintaining the required water quality. Recent technical developments have improved reactor performance by addressing key operating challenges, including the effects of salinity, organic matter, disinfectants, and initial bioreactor start-up processes. Advanced biological methods such as nitrification, simultaneous nitrification and denitrification, and hybrid approaches have been applied to enhance nitrogen removal from recirculating aquaculture wastewater. Although these innovations improve operational efficiency and water reuse, further challenges and technical considerations remain to be addressed to optimise moving bed bioreactors for wider use across commercial aquaculture facilities.
Aquaculture provides an important food source, but discharging untreated effluent threatens aquatic ecosystems and violates environmental standards. Treating and recycling water using moving bed bioreactors enables fish farms to reduce water consumption and prevent pollution. Understanding the mechanics of nitrogen removal and managing operating factors such as salinity and disinfectants helps make fish production more sustainable and environmentally compliant.
The technology applies directly to commercial fish farming operations and recirculating aquaculture facilities seeking to meet regulatory discharge standards and conserve water. The underlying moving bed bioreactor methods for nitrogen removal are applied and tested in aquaculture settings, though adapting systems to handle variable salinity, disinfectants, and start-up phases indicates that operational optimisation is ongoing before full off-the-shelf standardisation is realised.
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In recent years, government investments in implementing restrictive public policies on the treatment and discharge of effluents from the aquaculture industry have increased. Hence, efficient and cleaner methods for aquaculture production are needed. Recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) offers water conservation by recycling the treated aquaculture water for reuse. RAS wastewater treatment using a moving bed bioreactors (MBBRs) process has been considered well suited for maintaining good water quality, thereby making fish farming more sustainable. Currently, improvements were achieved in tackling the influence of salinity, organic matter, disinfectant, and bioreactor start-up process on the MBBR performance efficiency. This review highlights an updated overview of recent development made using MBBR to treat the residual water from RAS. Precisely, nitrification and simultaneous nitrification-denitrification (SND), and other hybrid processes for nitrogen removal were elucidated. Finally, future challenges and prospects of MBBRs in RAS facilities that need to be considered were also proposed.
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DOI: 10.1016/j.aaf.2021.04.006
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