Resource Recovery Through Halophyte Production in Marine Aquaponics: an Evaluation of the Nutrient Cycling and the Environmental
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University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 11-23-2015 Resource Recovery Through Halophyte Production in Marine Aquaponics: An Evaluation of the Nutrient Cycling and the Environmental Sustainability of Aquaponics Suzanne Boxman University of South Florida, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the Environmental Engineering Commons Scholar Commons Citation Boxman, Suzanne, "Resource Recovery Through Halophyte Production in Marine Aquaponics: An Evaluation of the Nutrient Cycling and the Environmental Sustainability of Aquaponics" (2015). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/5915 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Resource Recovery Through Halophyte Production in Marine Aquaponics: An Evaluation of the Nutrient Cycling and the Environmental Sustainability of Aquaponics by Suzanne E. Boxman A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering College of Engineering University of South Florida Co-Major Professor: Maya A. Trotz, Ph.D. Co-Major Professor: Sarina J. Ergas, Ph.D. Kevan L. Main, Ph.D. Qiong Zhang, Ph.D. Norma Alcantar, Ph.D. Date of Approval: October 21, 2015 Keywords: Aquaculture, Integrated Multi-Tropic, Life Cycle Assessment, Nutrient Reuse, Denitrification Copyright © 2015, Suzanne E. Boxman Dedication To my Mom, who celebrated with me on the good days and commiserated with me on the bad days. Who tirelessly edited papers throughout grade school and even sometimes in graduate school, despite my occasional defensiveness, providing me with the foundational writing skills to survive graduate school and all that it entails. And who, most importantly, taught me what it is to be a strong, capable woman. (Although, I’m still working on that comma thing and what are gerunds again?) Acknowledgements I would like to thank all of my committee members, Dr. Maya Trotz, Dr. Sarina J. Ergas, Dr. Kevan Main, Dr. Qiong Zhang, and Dr. Norma Alcantar and my dissertation chair, Dr. Thomas Crisman for their guidance and support throughout this process. A special thanks to Dr. Trotz who always pushed me to consider the big picture and Dr. Ergas who helped me become a better researcher. I would like to thank Michael Nystrom who was critical to collecting the data for this research and helped me gain a real world understanding of aquaculture. A huge thank you to Joseph Cove Capodice who was instrumental for completing analyses of the numerous water and plant samples collected for this research. I would like to thank Ryan Locicero, Karl Payne, Wainella Issacs, Maya Carrasquillo, Colleen Naughton, Melissa Butcher, Matt Verbyla, Veronica Aponte Morales, Laura Rodriguez, Frank Marcantoni, Brad Brooks, Tana Phelps, Tiffany Smith, Kathleen Bell, Brian McCarthy, Suzanne Young, Jennifer Smith, and Dr. James Mihelcic for their support, guidance, and help with this research. Thank you to all the staff and volunteers at Mote Aquaculture Research Park who took care of all the fish and other tasks I could not complete. I would like to thank my family Donna Boxman, Mark Boxman, and Jason Boxman and my boyfriend Jared Ritter for their unwavering support and encouragement. I would like to acknowledge the following funding sources that supported me: Florida Sea Grant # SI- 2014-0006, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Sea Grant Aquaculture Program NOAA award number NA10OAR4170079 (Florida SeaGrant Project #R/LR-A-48) and the University of South Florida Graduate School Challenge Grant. Several National Science Foundation (NSF) research grants aided this work including: S-STEM Grant Number: 0965743, Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Tampa Interdisciplinary Environmental Research (TIER) award number 1156905, Water Awareness Research and Education (WARE) Research Experience for Teachers (RET) award number 1200682. I was supported with a U.S. Department of Education Graduate Assistants in Area of National Need (GAANN) Fellowship, project number P200A090162 and Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE), project number 1243510. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Table of Contents List of Tables ...................................................................................................................................v List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. viii Abstract ............................................................................................................................................x Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................................................1 Chapter 2: Evaluation of Water Quality and Growth of Two Saltwater Vegetable Species in Bench-scale Marine Aquaponic Systems ..............................................................................6 2.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................6 2.2 Material and Methods ....................................................................................................9 2.2.1 Aquaponic System Design ..............................................................................9 2.2.2 Experimental Design .....................................................................................11 2.2.3 Sampling and Analysis .................................................................................13 2.2.4 Statistical Analysis ........................................................................................14 2.3 Results ..........................................................................................................................14 2.3.1 Daily Water Quality Measurements ..............................................................14 2.3.2 Media Experiment ........................................................................................15 2.3.3 FSD Experiment........................................................................................... 17 2.3.4 Fish ................................................................................................................19 2.4 Discussion ....................................................................................................................20 2.4.1 Media Experiment .........................................................................................20 2.4.2 FSD Experiment............................................................................................22 2.4.3 Plant Growth .................................................................................................24 2.4.4 Fish Growth ..................................................................................................26 2.5 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................26 Chapter 3: Evaluating Nitrogen and Phosphorus Transformations and Halophyte Production in a Marine Aquaponic System .............................................................................28 3.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................28 3.2 Brief Literature Review on Halophytes .......................................................................30 3.2.1 Halophytes as a Food Crop ...........................................................................31 3.2.2 Halophytes for Water Treatment ..................................................................34 3.3 Materials and Methods .................................................................................................39 3.3.1 System Description .......................................................................................39 3.3.2 Fish Stocking and Measurement ...................................................................42 3.3.3 Plant Stocking and Measurement..................................................................42 3.3.4 Water Sampling ............................................................................................44 i 3.3.5 Analytical Methods .......................................................................................45 3.3.6 Statistical Methods ........................................................................................46 3.4 Calculations..................................................................................................................46 3.4.1 Nitrogen Mass Balance .................................................................................46 3.4.1.1 Feed Inputs and Total Daily Removal ...........................................48 3.4.1.2 Plant Uptake ...................................................................................50 3.4.1.3 Sand Filter Removal ......................................................................50 3.4.1.4 Other Mechanisms