Sewage reuse for aquaculture after treatment in oxidation and duckweed pond.

The benefits of treating sewage by pond systems offer, through a simple and low-cost technology, social and commercial benefits, from the waste raw materials. The objective of this work was to demonstrate an effective treatment of the sewage by using natural treatment systems, and use of treated wastewater for aquaculture. The study was conducted for the sewage generated from the IIT Kharagpur campus. After characterization of the sewage, laboratory scale experiments were conducted for treatment using oxidation pond and duckweed pond. Survival and growth of fishes were observed in the experimental ponds using treated sewage. Based on the experimental results, full-scale treatment plant was designed to meet the aquaculture water quality. From the economics of the proposed full-scale plant, and utilization of the treated sewage for aquaculture, it is estimated that, the amount of Rs. 20,0000 can be generated every year. This amount recovered from the aquaculture will be more than the operating cost of the treatment plant, hence, making the operation of sewage treatment plant self sufficient. Use of a UASB reactor as the first stage treatment before sewage passes to the oxidation pond, can be a more attractive alternative because of less land requirement as compared to the oxidation pond alone, and additional land can be made available for aquaculture to increase revenue.