The effect of agricultural fertilizer on growth rate of benthic diatoms

摘要

The aim of this work was to consider a non-conventional medium for benthic diatoms culture, formulated with liquid agricultural fertilizers and with the 'f/2' medium used as control. Three strains of benthic marine diatoms (Nitzschia laevis, Nitzschia thermalis ar. minor and Navicula incerta) were grown with these two media. in batch cultures in 18-1 plastic containers. There were no significant differences in mean cell concentration and growth rate between three diatoms raised with agricultural fertilizers compared to the standard 'f/2' medium. The cost for non-conventional culture media is less than 1/8 the cost of the 'f/2' medium.