10.2 Wastewater Treatment Implementation in Aquaponics

In aquaponics, the wastewater charged with solids (i.e. the sludge) is a valuable source of nutrients, and appropriate treatments need to be carried out. The treatment goals differ from conventional wastewater treatment because in aquaponics solids and water conservation is of interest. Moreover, regardless of the wastewater treatment applied, its aim should be to reduce solids and at the same time mineralise its nutrients. In other words, the aim is to obtain a solid-free effluent but rich in solubilised nutrients (i.e. anions and cations) that can be reinserted into the water loop in a coupled setup (Fig. 10.1a) or directly into the hydroponic grow beds in a decoupled setup (Fig. 10.1b). Fish sludge solids are mainly composed of degradable organic matter so that the solid reduction can be called organic reduction. Indeed, the complex organic molecules (e.g. proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, etc.) are principally composed of carbon and will be successively reduced to lower molecular weight compounds until the ultimate gaseous forms of COsub2/sub and CHsub4/sub (in the case of anaerobic fermentation). During this degradation process, the macronutrients (i.e. N, P, K, Ca, Mg and S) and micronutrients (i.e. Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, B and Mo) that were bound to the organic molecules are released into the water in their ionic forms. This phenomenon is called nutrient leaching or nutrient mineralisation. It can be assumed that when high organic reduction is achieved, high nutrient mineralisation would also be achieved. On the one hand, sludge contains a proportion of undissolved minerals, and on the other hand, some macro- and micronutrients are released during the mineralisation process. These can quickly precipitate together and form insoluble minerals. The state between ions and precipitated minerals of most of the macro- and micronutrients is pH dependent. The most well-known minerals that precipitate in bioreactors are calcium phosphate, calcium sulphate, calcium carbonate, pyrite and struvite (Peng et al. 2018; Zhang et al. 2016). Conroy and Couturier (2010) observed that Ca and P were released in anaerobic reactor when the pH dropped under 6. They showed that the release corresponded exactly to the mineralisation of calcium phosphate. Goddek et al. (2018) also observed the solubilisation of P, Ca and other macronutrients in upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor (UASB) that turned acidic. Jung and Lovitt (2011) reported a 90% nutrient mobilisation of aquaculture-derived sludge at a very low pH value of 4. In this condition, all the macro- and micronutrients were solubilised. There is thus an antagonism between organic reduction and nutrient mineralisation. Indeed, organic reduction is maximal when the microorganisms are active for degrading the organic compounds, and this happens at pH in a range of 6—8. Because nutrient leaching occurs at pH below 6, for optimal organic reduction and nutrient mineralisation, the most effective would be to divide the process in two steps, i.e. an organic reduction step at pH close to neutral and a nutrient leaching step under acidic conditions. To our knowledge, no operation using this two-step approach has been yet reported. This opens a new field in wastewater treatment and more research for implementation in aquaponics is needed.

Fig. 10.1 Schematic implementation of sludge treatment in one loop aquaponic system (a) and in decoupled aquaponic system (b)

The choice of feed is also important in this context. In animal-based feeds where a major ingredient fraction is still based on animal sources (e.g. fishmeal, bone meal), bound phosphate, e.g. as apatite (derived from bone meal), is easily available under acidic conditions, whereas plant-based feeds contain phytate as a major phosphate source. Phytate in contrast to, e.g. apatite requires enzymatic (phytase) conversion (Kumar et al. 2012), and so the phosphate is not as easily available.