Bioconcentration of metals in the body muscle and gut of Clarias gariepinus exposed to sublethal concentrations of soap and detergent effluent.

Abstract

The toxicity of sublethal concentrations of effluents from a soap and detergent industry were investigated on African catfish Clarias gariepinus using a renewable static bioassay. The trend of bioconcentration of metals in the muscle and gut of the test organisms differs significantly (p muscle. The result revealed that the muscle had the least concentration of manganese at 0.1 x 10-3 mg/kg and 10.7 x 10-3 mg/kg recorded for zinc as the highest. While the highest iron concentration of 15.80 x 10-3 mg/kg was recorded in the gut tissues of C. gariepinus, but mercury had the least concentration of 1.00 x 10-3 mg/ kg. It was revealed that fish can bioaccumulate heavy metals from a polluted environment, which may result in impairment of natural population size; thus consumption of fish from such polluted environment should be discouraged. Key words: Bioconcentration, Clarias gariepinus, effluent, toxicity.