Investigation into the Potential use of Inland Saline Groundwater for the Production of Live Feeds for Commercial Aquaculture Purposes

Traditional agricultural methods and practices have rendered over 100 million hectares of land throughout the world, and over 5.7 million hectares in Australia, unsuitable for most forms of agriculture due to elevated salinity levels. Inland saline aquaculture is an adaptive approach to this environmental problem, and represents a potentially lucrative use for salt-affected land, with many economic, social and environmental benefits possible. Perhaps surprisingly, to date there has been relatively very little research conducted into the suitability (or otherwise) of inland saline aquaculture for the production of various species of microalgae and live feeds, which represent a crucial segment of the aquaculture industry. The key aim of this investigation was to test the hypothesis that all saline waters (natural sea water, artificial sea water and inland ground saline water) would produce uniform growth amongst the live feeds tested. This study expanded on the live feed species being tested to include Artemia (Artemia salina) rotifers (Brachionus plicatilis) and copepods (Cyclop ssp). While there were significant differences in the performance of all the tested live feed species, Nannochloropsis oculataand Brachionus plicatilisshowed better growth rates than those observed for natural seawater. It is hoped that these results can be used proactively by farmers seeking to diversify their crops to include the aquaculture of finfish in salt-affected areas of Australia and elsewhere.