Insight into Risks in Aquatic Animal Health in Aquaponics

Abstract

Increased public interest in aquaponics necessitates a greater need to monitor fish health to minimize risk of infectious and non-infectious disease outbreaks which result from problematic biosecurity. Fish losses due to health and disease, as well as reporting of poor management practices and quality in produce, which could in a worst-case scenario affect human health, can lead to serious economic and reputational vulnerability for the aquaponics industry. The complexity of aquaponic systems prevents using many antimicrobial/antiparasitic agents or disinfectants to eradicate diseases or parasites. In this chapter, we provide an overview of potential hazards in terms of risks related to aquatic animal health and describe preventive approaches specific to aquaponic systems.

Plant nutritional value of aquaculture water produced by feeding Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) alternative protein diets: A lettuce and basil case study

“…Although not the focus of the present study, it is known that fish feed composition can have an effect on the microbial community in RAS (Auffret et al, 2013; Blancheton et al, 2013; Schmidt et al, 2016) and future research in the field of aquaponic feed development should also focus on the influence of ingredient choice, for example, in case of alternative protein sources, on the microbiome of the RAS water and the potential establishment of PGPM in the hydroponic unit or even consider the inclusion of probiotics that could be mutually beneficial to fish and plants (Joyce et al, 2019; Kasozi et al, 2021; Sirakov et al, 2016; Yildiz et al, 2019).…”

“…While microorganisms play an essential role in many processes vital to aquaponics such as nitrification, denitrification, organic matter decomposition, and the mineralization of organically bound nutrients (Kasozi et al, 2021), PGPM including rhizobacteria and arbuscular fungi may also promote plant growth and disease resistance by improving the bioavailability of nutrients, stimulating root growth, producing antimicrobial compounds or inducing plant systemic resistance as well as potentially enhance the accumulation of secondary metabolites such as essential oils or antioxidants (Bartelme et al, 2018; da Silva Cerozi & Fitzsimmons, 2016; Kolega et al, 2020; Sirakov et al, 2016). Proper biosecurity measures and aquaponic system management are necessary to ensure stable and beneficial microbial communities (Mori & Smith, 2019; Stouvenakers et al, 2019; Yildiz et al, 2019) and factors such as system design, physico‐chemical water parameter (temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, etc. ), fish species, C/N ratio in the system water (Joyce et al, 2019; Kasozi et al, 2021) as well as feed composition (Auffret et al, 2013; Blancheton et al, 2013; Schmidt et al, 2016) can have a material influence on microbial communities in aquaponics and thus potentially the prevalence of PGPM.…”