FISH FARMING TECHNOLOGY
FISH FARMING TECHNOLOGY #3 What is 'The Water Cleanser'? by Eco Librium LLC
The Water Cleanser (TWC) is an exciting new product that is restoring quality and health to water systems around the world. TWC is a probiotic wax block that can best be described as a microbiological culture pad.
While TWC does not contain any microbes or bacteria, it is loaded with the essential trace elements required for probiotic species such as Bacillus spp to reproduce at an accelerated rate and to continue to thrive and function at their optimal levels. Additionally, The Water Cleanser has been specifically manufactured with millions of microscopic capillaries that progress throughout the product that serve as the ultimate protective home from which these naturally-occurring beneficial bacteria can colonise.
Why is 'The Water Cleanser' needed?
Water scarcity worldwide is becoming an increasingly critical issue, as the usable sources of water are being depleted from overuse or pollution. As agriculture and aquaculture continue to expand in order to provide for increasing global demand, these industries are facing increased government scrutiny and regulation to protect drinking water sources. Agricultural contributions to the nutrient overload from overfeeding, fish detritus, and fertiliser and effluent run-off are overwhelming the nitrogen-cycle bacteria responsible for transforming the waste from toxic ammonium into nitrite and then into relatively non-toxic nitrate. This interrupted cycle leads to a buildup of ammonium and encourages the rapid growth of toxic cyanobacteria (bluegreen algae) due to its ability to affix nitrogen directly from the atmosphere. E. coli and C. Botulinum also attempt to deal with a nutrient overload by increasing in number and contributing to outbreaks of disease throughout the system. Additionally, the slowing of the nitrogen cycle from eutrophication is also believed to contribute to yield differences between ponds as the nutrient overload can affect the digestive ability of the aquatic stock to process food.
How does 'The Water Cleanser' work?
TWC reinstates the microbiological balance of water systems by stimulating the naturally occurring beneficial bacteria such as the probiotic Bacillus species. As part of their function in the waste breakdown process, Bacillus produce enzymes, which break apart nutrients into a molecular size that nitrogen cycle bacteria can quickly process. The essential trace elements for breeding infused into the block, along with the huge surface area of The Water Cleanser, enable the accelerated increase of the beneficial bacteria required to reset the nitrogen cycle. In the presence of TWC, Bacillus spp can double their concentrations in only 26 minutes, compared to 45 minutes without. This means that over a period of 10 hours, a single Bacillus bacterium would produce 8,000,000 doubles, versus only 8,000 doubles in a system without The Water Cleanser. Scientists at Santa Ursula University (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) discovered while testing for new solutions to combat pollution in Rio de Janeiro lagoons that not only did the use of The Water Cleanser result in nutrient levels that reached values close to zero, but they 40 | December 2017 - International Aquafeed
Use of TWC provides
• Reduced Nutrient levels (Ammonium, Nitrite, Nitrate, Phosphorus) • Improved Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) • Reduced counts of pathogenic bacteria • Accelerated organic waste breakdown and processing • Removal of odors • Increased efficiency of effluent systems As a result, tests performed by Curtin University (Perth, Australia) using The Water Cleanser in marine and freshwater aquaria yielded: • Increased stocking density by 31 percent • Increased fish biomass by 25 percent • Reduced biological start-up deaths from 30 percent to three percent