Biochemical composition of benthic marine diatoms using as culture medium a common agricultural fertilizer

摘要

Three strains of benthic marine diatoms (Nitzschia thermalis var. minor, Nitzschia laevis and Navicula incerta) were grown individually in batch systems with 10 liters of non-conventional culture media formulated with three common agricultural fertilizers. The quantity and quality of the biomass produced using non-conventional culture media were compared to those obtained with a traditional culture media, "f/2". The objective of this study was to consider a low cost and alternative media to culturethe benthic diatoms commonly used in commercial abalone hatcheries. No significant differences were found among the biomass produced with non-conventional or control media. The trend in chemical composition of each diatom culture had a significant difference during 10 days of experimentation for all species. For the cultures of diatoms Nitzschia thermalis var. minor, Nitzschia laevis and Navicula incerta, the chemical composition did not differ between media. Our results suggested non-conventional media did not affect biomass or biochemical composition and it cost eight times less than "f/2".