Journal of Fisheries & Livestock Production
Open Access

Research Article

Cool Water Off-flavor Algae and Water Quality in Four Arkansas Commercial Catfish Farms

Aquaculture/Fisheries Center, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, USA

*Corresponding Author:

Lin X
Aquaculture/Fisheries Center Mail Slot 4912
University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff 1200
N. University Drive, Pine Bluff, AR 71601, USA
Tel: 870-575-8157
Fax: 870-575-4637
E-mail: xiel@uapb.edu

Received Date: November 03, 2015; Accepted Date: December 10, 2015; Published Date: January 01, 2016

Citation: Lin X, Peter P (2016) Cool Water Off-flavor Algae and Water Quality in Four Arkansas Commercial Catfish Farms. J Fisheries Livest Prod 4:158. doi:10.4172/2332-2608.1000158

Copyright: © 2016 Lin X, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Catfish pond culture during the cool weather period of late fall, winter and early spring have experienced problems related to algal populations. Geosmin tainting by off-flavor cyanobacteria is more abundant at this time. Toxic algae episodes also appear to be more common during cool weather periods, including the devastating new golden algae (Pyrmesium parvum) HAB, in adjacent Texas and believed to have occurred in Arkansas. Water and phytoplankton samples were collected weekly at 0800-1000 from November to April for three consecutive years from 12 ponds at 4 commercial catfish farms located in the southeastern Arkansas. Oscillatoria chalybea was found from November- January at low levels and Pseudanabaena limnetica occurred from January-April. Results from multiple regression show that the values of the expected number of Anabaena circinalis is significantly associated with dissolved oxygen, pH, total ammonia nitrogen, nitrite nitrogen, green algae, Chlorophyll a and Pheophytin a and the expected number of Oscillatoria chalybea is associated with total ammonia nitrogen, un-ionized ammonia, Pheophytin a cyanobacteria, and diatoms, whereas the expected number of Pseudanabaena limnetica is linked to temperature, total ammonia nitrogen and un-ionized ammonia, respectively.

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