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The effects of varying dilution levels of wastewater on the cultivation of Spirulina sp

Ghofar, H. S. A.¹, Jahromi, M. J.¹, Ikhsan, F. N. M.³, Samsudin, A. A.²*

¹Institute of Tropical Agriculture and Food Security (ITAFOS), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Serdang, Malaysia
²Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia
³Department of Aquaculture, Faculty of Agriculture, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia

Malaysian J. Anim. Sci. 2019 22(1): 25-33

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Spirulina sp. is a photosynthetic cyanobacteria containing excellent nutritional content to be used as food as well as source of feed supplement for animal. However, the key factor in developing a competitive process to produce Spirulina sp. as feed and as a source of added-value products is by using a low-cost medium to lower the cost production. Animal wastewater demonstrated to be one of the best nitrogen sources to produce a low-cost medium. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of four different types of wastewater: goat, poultry, seawater (30 ppt) and UPM farm supplied water at dilution rates of 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% on the cultivation of Spirulina platensis TBSH1-5. The culture was randomly arranged between the treatments and wastewater with three replicates and was maintained for 30 days under 24 hours of light, together with aeration. Cultivation of Spirulina sp. in different wastewater types was found to be significantly (P<0.05) affected by different types of wastewater with higher growth of Spirulina was notified in goat wastewater and farm supplied water at 25% dilution, whereas, the dry weight was found to be significantly higher in seawater compared to other wastewater types at 0.27 g (25%), 0.29 g (50%), 0.18 g (75%) and 0.08 g (100%). In conclusion, dilution of media with farm supplied water and goat wastewater may be used as alternative sources for low-cost culture media for the biomass gain of Spirulina sp.