Study of ammonia removal in aquaponic system with Chinese flowering cabbage (Brassica chinensis (var. parachinensis)) and mechanical filter for tilapia cultivation

Abstract

Water quality is one of the important factors to increase the success of fish farming production apart from disease factors and fish seed quality. Oreochromis niloticus or commonly called tilapia is one of the fish that is widely cultivated in Indonesia. The challenges of increasing intensive aquaculture production are stocking density and high protein feed while maintaining good water quality. High stocking densities and high protein feed can increase ammonia in the water which can cause death in fish, for that some quality control of aquaculture can be done, namely using mechanical filters (Granular activated carbon and biofoam) and aquaponic. The difference between these two methods was in the media used, mechanical filters used granular activated carbon and biofoam, while aquaponics used Chinese flowering cabbage (caisin) (Brassica chinensis var. parachinensis). To determine the effectiveness of reducing ammonia from the two methods, this study will compare water quality parameters with mechanical filters and aquaponic filter methods by using plant medi, namely (Brassica chinensis var. parachinensis). This research was conducted for 30 days to measure several water quality parameters including temperature, DO, pH, TDS and total ammonia nitrogen (TAN). The results during the study showed that the recirculating aquaponic system was better than the recirculating system with a mechanical filter (Granular activated carbon and biofoam) for SR, FCR and TDS parameters while the temperature, pH, DO and TAN parameters for 30 days were not much different between the recirculating aquaponic system and the recirculating system using a mechanical filter (Granular activated carbon and biofoam).