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Impacts of Nile Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) exposed to microplastics in bioflocs system
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Researchers assessed the effects of polystyrene microplastics on Nile tilapia raised in a bioflocs aquaculture system over 28 days. While the microplastics did not significantly affect water quality, fish growth, or digestive enzymes, they accumulated most heavily in the liver and increased markers of oxidative stress. The findings suggest that even in biofloc systems rich in beneficial microbes, microplastics can still accumulate in fish organs and cause subtle biological harm.
Microplastics (MPs) are abundant in aquaculture water, including in bioflocs aquaculture systems. Compared with other aquaculture systems, biofloc technology systems have the richest microbes and are beneficial to cultivated organisms. Therefore, this study provides a comprehensive assessment of the potential effects of MPs on aquaculture organisms in bioflocs systems. Here, Nile Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) were exposed to MPs (polystyrene; 32-40 μm diameter) with 0, 80 items/L (30 μg/L), and 800 items/L (300 μg/L) for 28 days in a bioflocs aquaculture system. The results showed that the MPs generally had no apparent effect on water quality, tilapia growth, or digestive enzyme activity. However, MPs accumulated the most in the liver (5.65 ± 0.74 μg/mg) and significantly increased the hepato-somatic index of tilapia and reduced the crude protein and lipid of tilapia muscle (p < 0.05). The levels of the antioxidant enzymes catalase and glutathione S-transferase increased significantly in response to MPs (p < 0.05). In contrast, MPs did not affect the content of glutathione, glutathione peroxidase, oxidized glutathione, and malondialdehyde, or the enzyme activity of Na/K-ATPase. Moreover, using an improved integrated biomarker response index, growth performance was found to be less responsive to MPs than to oxidative stress and digestive activity. Exposure to MPs did not significantly influence the microbial communities of the bioflocs and tilapia guts (p < 0.05). These results suggest that MPs barely affected tilapia in the bioflocs system. This study contributes to the evaluation of the ecological risk of MPs in aquaculture systems and a better understanding of the integrated response of cultivated vertebrates to MPs in biofloc technology systems.
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Researchers studied how microplastics behave in biofloc aquaculture systems — where beneficial bacteria clusters are used to improve water quality — finding that microplastics accumulate in both the bacterial clusters and tilapia tissues, with intestinal contamination rising sharply at higher plastic concentrations. The results show that biofloc technology does not protect fish from microplastic exposure and that plastic management is essential for safe aquaculture.
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