Subject: Fish in waste water plant ?

From: [email-masked] (Jan Van den Berghe)
Date: Sun, 9 Jul 1995 16:30:56 GMT

Hi, 

I'm Jan Van den Berghe, a bio-engineer from Flanders, Belgium. I'm currently 
thinking about breeding fish in a waste water plant. Needless to say that the 
water is clear enough : goldfish survive in it. 

My question was : how do I proceed to breed fish of commercial value in that 
water. What fish ? What could be a layout of the system ?

Please mail me (as I'm going on holiday for a month and won't be able to read 
the articles here in time).

Thanks a lot

Jan

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From: Greg Van Eeckhout <[email-masked]>
Date: 12 Jul 1995 22:51:59 GMT

Hey I thought I'd drop you a note since you are Dutch such as I.  I 
would want to know more about the temperature and water conditions, such 
as nutrients, suspended sediments and most importantly dissolved oxygen.  
One thing you may want to check is what is the daily oxygen 
concentration like over time, that is: concentration by hour for a 24hr 
period.  I would guess you may find that you have some real ups and 
downs in this daily cycle and may not support that many fish.  As far as 
what kind of fish would be heavily influenced by the temperature and 
conditions in the ponds, a friend of mine works in aquaculture for the 
state of Minnesota,USA maybe able to give you better adivce on fish 
based on conditions his email address is: 
[email-masked]
and his name is Brian Erickson, best of luck to you and your venture
Greg Van Eeckhout

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From: [email-masked] (Erick Oshel)
Date: 16 Jul 1995 08:23:30 GMT

Jan Van den Berghe ([email-masked]) wrote:
: Hi, 

: I'm Jan Van den Berghe, a bio-engineer from Flanders, Belgium. I'm 
: currently thinking about breeding fish in a waste water plant. Needless 
: to say that the : water is clear enough : goldfish survive in it. 

: My question was : how do I proceed to breed fish of commercial value 
: in that water. What fish ? What could be a layout of the system ?

I am a student at the University of California, Davis and am currently 
helping with research reguarding wetlands carbon cycling in cattails and 
tules at the demonstration wetlands run by the Sacramento County Regional
Wastewater Treatment Facility.  I do not know the details of the system, 
only that about 1% of the treated effluent from the Sacramento Wastewater 
facility is run through UV sterilization then fed into a series of 
shallow ponds (about 50 cm deep with 3 six foot holes.) Each pond has 
mosquito fish in it and a few support thriving populations of bullfrogs 
and crayfish.  Recently, 10,000 guppies were added to some of the cells.  
The incredible numbers and size of daphnia and insect larvae of various 
types make me think that this is an incredible resource for aquaculture.  
However, although the water is quite clear, and there are waterfowl, 
fish, even muskrats and otters living in these cells, I doubt that 
anything grown in them would be condidered safe for any kind of 
comercial consumption.  The concern centers on both a worry about heavy 
metals and other toxins as well as the added problem that the UV 
sterilizer has been found to be less than 100% effective.  It seems that 
some bacteria are knocked senseless for several hours, but are able to 
restructure their DNA and revive themselves.  Therefore, we are requited 
to wear waders and are told to minimize body contact with the treated 
water.  I think that comercial aquaculture using wastewater is a great 
idea, but it won't work here yet.  Please let me know what you find out.  
I am interested to see what other people have found.  

Unfortunately, I do not know the e-mail address for the Sacramento 
Regional Waste Water Treatment Facility.  However, I could probaly ask 
for it, or give them your e-mail address, if you are interested.

-Erick

Erick Oshel
University of California, Davis
[email-masked]