Mathematical model for predicting oxygen concentration in tilapia fish farms

The main aim of this research is to develop a mathematical model to predict the dissolved oxygen in recirculating aquaculture system. The oxygen consumption of the model through the fish respiration and nitrification and the oxygen addition of the model through oxygen generator and water pumping. The effect of different water temperatures (24, 26, 28, 30 and 32 °C) on the dissolved oxygen consumption through fish respiration, biofilter and nitrification and fish growth were studied. An experiment to measure oxygen consumed by fish respiration and biofilteration and fish growth with the growth period and to validate the model results was carried out. The oxygen consumption predicted by the model was in a good agreement with those measured by the system. The oxygen consumption by fish respiration ranged 12.04 to 47.53 g O(2) m(−3) h(−1) experimentally, while it was from 12.01 to 46.06 g O(2) m(−3) h(−1) theoretically. The predicted and measured oxygen consumption through biofilteration values ranged from 0.43 to 21.91 and 0.45 to 23.09 g O(2) m(−3) h(−1), respectively. The individual fish weight from the system ranged from 3.00 to 209.52 g experimentally while it was from 3.00 to 226.25 g theoretically during the whole period.