Performance of full-scale woodchip bioreactors treating effluents from commercial RAS

摘要

The aquaculture industry needs new cost-effective solutions for removing effluent nitrogen to reduce their environmental impact. Recent studies have shown that laboratory and pilot-scale woodchip bioreactors can remove nitrate from aquaculture effluent. Encouraged by these results, several Danish fish farmers recently constructed commercial scale woodchip bioreactors prior to- or integrated into existing free water surface constructed wetlands without knowing the effects of design and upscaling on removal performance. The objective of the current study was to monitor initial performance (first 28-52 weeks of operation) of three such custom-designed denitrifying woodchip bioreactors installed in full-scale (350, 650, and 1250 m(3) woodchips) for effluent treatment at three commercial recirculated rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) farms.