Reuse of treated municipal wastewater of Miandoab for rearing Artemia urmiana (Günther, 1890)

Reuse of industrial and municipal wastewater in agriculture and aquaculture has always been considered. Recent drought crises in Iran and other parts of the world have made this issue even more important. In the present study, Miandoab’s municipal wastewater was used for the cultivation of Artemia urmiana, and the performance of growth and survival and bacterial flora of Artemia was evaluated in this system. For this purpose, firstly, after checking the bacterial load in the wastewater, three different treatments including salinity of 60, 80 and 100 g/l and chlorination of 1, 3, 6 and 9 mg/l of the wastewater were improved. The breeding was carried out in a controlled and standard laboratory condition for a 20-day period, the growth and survival rate of Artemia was compared with the control. At the end of the course, the bacteria and infection rate of the Artemia biomass were measured. The results showed that in all treatments, the growth and survival of Artemia in wastewater was higher than the control treatment in normal water and this difference was significant in most cases (p<0.05). Increasing the salinity between 80 to 100 g/l and chlorination up to 6 to 9 mg/ could significantly reduce the bacterial load of the biomass grown in the system (p<0.05). As a final conclusion, it can be argued that due to the inherent and nutritional characteristics of the Artemia and the quality of wastewater, this water can be used successfully to cultivate Artemia massively. Also, by increasing water salinity and chlorination, the bacterial flora of the municipal wastewater can be reduced to an extent that the produced biomass is free of contamination.