Capacity of a flow-through biofilter system to secure K-selection and microbial stability in the out-flowing water

Abstract

Water treatment and design of aquaculture systems are typically focused on optimising physicochemical water quality and efforts to maintain bacteria numbers low. High bacteria numbers are not necessarily problematic for the cultured organisms as long as the system is bio-stable and all other requirements are met. In this Project the main objective is to optomise the systems for microbiial stability in the water instead of keeping low bacteria numbers. We are aiming at elucidating the underlying mechanisms to better understand the effects of water treatment on the microbial dynamics.

The project will involve experiments for seawater in lab-scale continuous reactors.