Mass production of Rhodopseudomonas palustris as diet for aquaculture

Three different types of anaerobic fermentations were used for the mass production of the photosynthetic bacterium Rhodopseudomonas palustris as diet for aquaculture. The optimum agitation speed and malate concentration were 300 r.p.m. and 0.2% in the modified MYC medium, respectively. In batch fermentations of R. palustris, the maximum number of viable cells was 1.1×10 c.f.u. ml with 2.65 g l of DCW, and the maximum specific growth rate and biomass productivity were estimated to be 0.12 h and 55 mg l h, respectively. Crude protein content of R. palustris was about 72–74%. The composition of stearic acid and oleic acid of R. palustris was superior to those of Chlorella and yeasts, while that of other fatty acids tested was not. The amino acid profiles of the protein hydrolysate compared favorably with Food Agricultural Organization (FAO) guidelines. The biomass productivities from fed-batch experiments were found to be 50, 47 and 49 mg l h for linear, exponential, and sigmoidal feeding strategy, respectively. The maximum biomass productivity was found to be 112 mg l h in chemostat. Compared to growth in batch cultures, continuous fermentation yielded two times higher biomass productivity. © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.