Geochemistry and microbiology of Coastal Aquaculture Demonstration and Training Project, Gelang Patah, Johore Bahru, Malaysia

The Coastal Aquaculture Demonstration and Training Project at Gelang Patah is a major investment of resources and personnel to provide guidance for brackishwater aquaculture in Malaysia. As such, one of its crucial roles is to define the most important problems in brackishwater aquaculture development and establish workable solutions to these problems. The staff and facilities at Gelang Patah seem very well suited to address these tasks. It is clear that one of the major problems confronted at t he project is acid production from the dike soils and other associated chemical and biological phenomena. This problem is quite a general one in Southeast Asia, and can be expected to occur in many locations which would otherwise be very desirable for brackishwater aquaculture in Malaysia. Thus it is probably good in the long run that the research facility at Gelang Patah has to face this problem early in the management of aquaculture. It is not known what aspects of acid soils are most detrimen tal to shrimp and fish aquaculture but there are a number of likely candidates, including (a) low pH (perhaps due to interference in Ca transport and storage); (b) high dissolved iron; (c) high dissolved aluminum; (d) iron particles clogging gill surfaces and (e) low primary productivity due to stripping of dissolved phosphate by cycling of iron through oxidation-reduction reactions. It is important to collect good, systematic data on chemical properties in the water, soil and sediments, in conj unction with documentation of shrimp and fish yields, to help define what factors associated with acid soil are most important in limiting aquaculture yields.

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Lamont-Doherty ;Fisheries and Aquaculture Management Division
Format: Project biblioteca
Language:English
Published: 1982
Online Access:https://openknowledge.fao.org/handle/20.500.14283/Q1068E
http://www.fao.org/3/a-q1068e.htm
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