PRODUCTION POTENTIAL AND ECONOMIC VIABILITY OF AQUACULTURE IN DAIRY WASTEWATER

Abstract

An experiment was carried out with the fish species rohu (Labeo rohita, Hamilton, 1822) and common carp (Cyprinus carpio, Linnaeus 1758) to estimate the primary productivity and production potential of fish culture under three different dilution factors of dairy wastewater and fresh water as treatments, which were 2:98 (2 part dairy wastewater: 98 part freshwater), 4:96 and 6:94 along with control as 100% freshwater to find out which one is the most suitable for culture practices. The treatments were marked as 2:98 C, 4:96 C and 6:94 C with common carp group and 2:98 R, 4:96 R and 6:94 R in rohu group. Both the species showed significant increase in growth with decreasing dilution factor, i.e., 2:98<4:96<6:94. The maximum growth (8.266 g for rohu and 4.013 g for common carp) was observed in the treatment 6:94. Rohu attained better growth as compared to common carp. The primary productivity also got significantly increased with decreasing dilution factor. Maximum primary productivity, 685 mgC m^-3 hr ^-1 GPP and 151 mgC m^-3 hr^-1 NPP, was found in the dilution factor 6:94. The maximum production potential for rohu was found as 494 kg ha^-1 yr^-1 and for common carp as 480 kg ha ^-1 yr^-1. The physic-chemical properties of the water were found in the favorable ranges for freshwater fish culture. The system can minimize the input cost up to Rs.15615 ha ^-1 year^-1. The study concluded that dairy wastewater with suitable dilution can be efficiently used for fish culture.

Keywords: Primary productivity,  dairy wastewater, production potential, economic viability.