Ammonia Nitrogen Removal in Recirculating Aqua Culture System (RAS)

Recirculating Aqua culture System commonly known as RAS system are gaining popularity for closed loop fish and sea food production under controlled environment due to its numerous benefits such as:

• Lower Foot Print
• Lower Water Usage
• Higher Rearing Density
• Better quality of fish and sea food
• Higher production rate due to lower mortality

During their different growth phases, fish produces a lot of Ammonia nitrogen which if not removed then affect the fish quality and production quantity.

Conventionally for the removal of Ammonia nitrogen from the RAS water, different carriers based biofilters or MBBRs are utilized for the biological nitrification of the Ammonia present in the RAS water.

Levapor carriers based biofilters/MBBRs offer the most efficient and economical solution for the removal of Total Ammonia present in the water for RAS system.

The high surface area, adsorption capacity due to activated carbon and fine pore structure of Levapor carriers offer distinct advantages compared to conventional plastic carriers for RAS system such as :

• Smaller foot print
• Quick Process Start up
• Lowest possible Ammonia levels in the treated effluent
• Higher amount of Simultaneous Nitrification and Denitrification (SNDN) offering lowest TAN load in the recirculating water

Above specific advantages of Levapor carriers application for RAS system results in :

• Better Quality and Quantity of Fish Production due to lowering Ammonia toxicity which reduces mortality rates and deformities in the fish stock
• Economical production cost
• lower environmental foot print due to effective reuse of water

At one of the largest salmon hatchery in Europe, different carriers were compared parallel for their ammonia removal efficiency for the hatchery’s RAS system. The comparative study indicated that Levapor carriers outperformed all other carriers for Ammonia and TAN removal in the system.