Dealing with salinity in Wheatbelt Valleys - Department of Water

George and Coleman
SPECIES
Table 5: Temperature and salinity parameters for a number of species of
fish crustaceans and molluscs (modified from Lawrence 1996).
SALINITY
(mg/L x 1000)
TEMPERATURE REFERENCE
BRINE SHRIMP 31–340 6–35 Persoone et al. (1980)
Artemia salina/Parartemia sp.
BARRAMUNDI 0–70 16–35 Shelley (1993);.
Lates calcarifer Coleman (pers.com)
RED SNAPPER 16–60 13–28 Anon. (1995)
Pagrus auratus
BLACK BREAM 3–60 8–33 Lenanton (1976);
Acanthopagrux butcheri Sudmeyer et al. (1999)
GROUPER 23–45 18–31 Akatsu et al. (1983)
Epinephelus tauvina
MARRON 0–6 0–30 Morrissy et al. (1990);
Cherax tenuimanus Morrissy (1992)
MILK FISH 0.5–158 25–36 Schuster (1960)
Chanos chanos
MULLET 0–75 3–35 Murashige et al. (1991);
Mugil cephalux Walsh et al. (1991)
GIANT TIGER PRAWN 13–33 10–25 Tseng (1987)
Penaeux monodon
RAINBOW TROUT 0–35 10–22 Sedgwick (1985);
Oncorhynchus mykiss Bromage & Shepherd (1990)
TILAPIA 0–60 8–42 Kueltz & Onke (1993)
Oreochromis mossambicus
YABBIES 0–8 0–36 Morrissy & Cassells (1992);
Cherax albidus Mills & Geddes (1980)
specialised and experienced people. As for most
micro algae ventures the difficulty is not growing the
small plant but harvesting it and processing the fine
chemicals that make them so valuable. The following
(Table 6) is a list of potential algae species that could
be cultured in saline water.
Most algae species require an extensive area for
culturing with a high level of solar radiation. An
extensive area also means that evaporation is high, so
a large supply of relatively low salinity 'make up'
water is needed to maintain the salinity of grow out
ponds during high evaporation. This is not normally a
problem for Dunaliella salina that is cultured in water
up to 300,000 mg/L and where seawater
concentration makeup water is often effective in
– 12 –
maintaining a constant salinity in the grow out ponds.
It is more of an issue with species cultured at lower
salinities where an effective make up water needs to
be approaching potable water standards to be useful.
It is not practical to grow a species that can only
tolerate a salinity of 50,000 mg/L when the only
water available in large quantities is at 35,000 mg/L.
Algae culture uses a large amount of water as the
culture areas need to be in the hectare range or
greater to be commercial. The commercial
Dunaliella salina farms are several hundred hectares
in size. The water used for algae culture needs a
high concentration of nutrients and can tolerate a
high concentration of metals, although some metals
will tie up valuable nutrients.