FISH WASTE MANAGEMENT: CULTURING AZOLLA USING FISH MANURE

Fish waste management has been tedious process for both municipality and as well as sea food processing industries due to its high organic content. Fish waste is often classified as a certified waste with high disposal cost. The fish manure usually contains organic matter and minerals such as calcium, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium. These minerals are limiting nutrients for growing Azolla.

Fish manure was prepared by dumping fish waste, saw dust and water in the barrel, which took nearly two months composting. This compost manure was used to grow culture Azolla .The Azolla culture set up had a barrel (100 cm*30cm*30cm), 10cm layered red soil and 15 cm level of water, and inoculum of 10g of Azolla .10 g of compost fish manure was added initially for the growth, subsequently 2g of manure was added with an interval of 3 days. After two weeks of experiment, the quantity of Azolla increased to 30g in weight.

To conclude Fish manure has all the limiting nutrient which is required for the growth of azolla in abundance.Hence fish manure is one of the alternative nutrient source for culturing azolla with conventional sources.