Supplementing commercial media with shrimp fecal waste enhances productivity in Salicornia grown in a hydroponic system

Abstract The aim of this work was to evaluate the use of shrimp waste as a bioavailable source of nutrients for the growth of Salicornia europaea, before and after a cavitation process and either in combination with or without commercial fertilizer. Fecal wastes were collected from the drum filter in a recirculating system for shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei culture. The two-factorial experimental design was pretreatment of fecal waste with cavitation (and control without cavitation) and nutrient source (commercial nutrient media (NM) or fecal waste (FW)) at different concentration ratios (100%/0%; 65%/35%; 35%/65% and 0%/100% of nutrient media or fecal waste). The growth experiment lasted 62 days. Media composition had a significant effect on final biomass, and yields ranged from 0.29 to 0.62 kg m-2 at 0%/100% and 65%/35%, respectively. The commercial media evaluated does not appear to be well suited for cultivation of Salicornia, and performance can be significantly increased if the commercial media is partially replaced with fecal waste (65%/35% ratio). However, whether pretreatment of fecal sludge is necessary to make nutrients available to Salicornia cannot be answered because it had no significant effect on final biomass.