Investigation of the Potentials of Local Strains of Pseudomonas for Aquaculture Water Treatment

The need for human and animal food production cannot be over-emphasized. Aquaculture and related activities have become an important sustainable business in Nigeria. Water pollution rates have increased in modern times owing to the various chemical usage. The receiving water bodies therefore constitute a potential source of danger to both humans and animals. Several metabolites of the bacteria can cause detoxification of polluted water. There is a need to develop indigenous bacteria consortia for application in the treatment of wastewater bodies in order to reduce importation and earn local earnings. Some indigenous Pseudomonas strains were isolated from waste soil sites using standard microbiological techniques including pour-plating serially diluted 1g of the soil sample in 9 ml of sterile peptone water. The basic features of the developed discrete colonies were studied, sub-cultured and then the purified isolates; PM05, PM78, PM13 and PM56 were challenged by growing them respectively with wastewater. Specifically, the NH4+-N content decreased from 230 mg/L to a range of between 0.5 to 12 mg/L. While NO3-N decreased from 25 mg/l to between 5.3 to 14.6mg/L. NO2-N decreased from 12mg/L to between 1.3 to 5.7 mg/L. and available/total N decreased from 235 to 103 mg/L respectively. The results indicated that the strains generally have the potential to remove nitrogen through the metabolic pathway of nitrogen assimilation which may make them fit for further development for bio-remediation purposes. Also, the results generated will add to the previous knowledge that such important strains can be obtained from the local soils and sediments in Nigeria.