Abstract:
Expanding aquaculture sector is generating high amount of wastewater containing
nitrogen and phosphorus. One obstacle of mass culturing microalgae is expensive
commercial media. Wastewater resulting from aquaculture activities can be a source of
nutrient as alternative medium for cultivating microalgae thereby reducing the
production cost. Therefore, present study compared the growth, productivity, proximate
composition and pigments of Chaetoceros calcitrans, Nannochloris maculate, and
Tetraselmis chuii cultured in aquaculture wastewater and Conway medium. Aquaculture
wastewater sample was collected from Blue Archipelago Berhad at Setiu, Terengganu,
Malaysia that culture Pacific White Shrimp. This study could provide essential
knowledge for proper assessment and management of aquaculture wastewater at Setiu.
Results indicated that selected microalgae cultivated in wastewater and Conway medium
did not show any significant differences (p > 0.05) in terms of cell density, optical
density and biomass. In addition, volumetric, areal and lipid productivity showed similar
trend for all the three species where no significance differences (p > 0.05) were found.
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The three species also did not show any significant differences (p > 0.05) in terms of
carbohydrate, protein and lipid content cultured either in wastewater or Conway
medium. Pigment concentration in terms of chlorophyll a concentration has no
significance difference (p > 0.05) of all three species microalgae cultured either in
wastewater and Conway medium. However, carotenoid concentration for N. maculate
was significantly higher (p < 0.05) in Conway medium than wastewater medium. There
was no significance difference (p > 0.05) of carotenoid content for C. calcitrans and T.
chuii cultured either in wastewater or Conway medium.
