Inland saline aquaculture is the farming or culture of aquatic animals and plants using inland (i.e. non-coastal) sources of saline groundwater rather than the more common coastal aquaculture methods. As a side benefit, it can be used to reduce the amount of salt in underground water tables, leading to an improvement in the surrounding land usage for agriculture. Due to its nature, it is only commercially possible in areas that have large reserves of saline groundwater, such as Australia.

Systems

Extensive culture

Extensive culture aquaculture systems are simple and with low levels of intervention. An example of this would be a salty dam, lake or pond stocked with trout, where no food is needed to be added as the fish can feed off what naturally occurs in the water. While they required little capital investment or management time, their productivity is relatively low.

Intensive culture

Intensive culture requires more capital outlay and greater management time. Often they use purpose-built facilities (e.g. tanks), artificial food and

aeration Aeration (also called aerification or aeriation) is the process by which air is circulated through, mixed with or dissolved in a liquid or other substances that act as a fluid (such as soil). Aeration processes create additional surface area in ...

and constant monitoring of water quality. It has much higher productivity rates, but associated high levels of feeding, labour, water pumping and capital costs.

Semi-intensive culture

Semi-intensive culture is in between extensive and intensive culture. It may range from adding some artificial feed to an extensive system or some aeration and waste management. Costs rise as more inputs are added.

Suitable species

Fish

* Rainbow trout - robust, fast growth, require low water temperatures, may be limited to winter production * Brown trout - robust, fast growth, require low water temperatures, may be limited to winter production *

Barramundi The barramundi (''Lates calcarifer'') or Asian sea bass, is a species of catadromous fish in the family Latidae of the order Perciformes. The species is widely distributed in the Indo-West Pacific, spanning the waters of the Middle East, Sout ...

- needs higher temperatures, tolerant in a large range of salinity levels *

Macquarie perch The Macquarie perch (''Macquaria australasica'') is an Australian native freshwater fish of the Murray-Darling river system. It is a member of the family Percichthyidae and is closely related to the golden perch (''Macquaria ambigua''). The ...

- wide tolerance over range of salinity and water quality levels, not suitable for commercial quantities * Silver Perch - suitable for extensive and intensive systems, prefers warmer water * Snapper

Other species

Crustaceans Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean gro ...

- brine, shrimp, prawns - these can be included as part of a wastewater treatment program as some have the capacity to quickly clean water *

Molluscs Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is estim ...

mussels Mussel () is the common name used for members of several families of bivalve molluscs, from saltwater and freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other edible clams, which ...

* Algae - both unicellular and "seaweeds" can be used to extract a range of high-value products, including

pharmaceutical A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field an ...

chemicals.

Mixing species

Chain system

Some inland aquaculture systems involve using a range of separated species to increase its productivity. An example of this would be where water is used to culture a fish specifies, which is then diverted to tanks of shellfish which feed on the fine particles left by the fish, which then is diverted to algae species which remove the dissolved nutrients, and then last of all the water is sent to a horticultural system.

Poly-culture

Separate from this type of system is poly-culture, where two or more species are cultured in the same water, possibly multiple fish species or a fish and mollusc species.

External links

* * * * * Aquaculture {{agri-stub