Scientific HatcheriesAnother area of interest for Scientific Hatcheries is related to water treatment system design. We have been involved in recycle hatchery system, ground water treatment systems (MTBE, TBA, and other contaminants), preprocess very poor ground water for RO treatment, clean up of hatchery well water supplies, clean up of hatchery ocean intake water supplies and identifying and correcting design errors in other systems that were creating operational problems (such as killing animals in hatchery or production facilities).
We have developed the technology for Fluidized Bed Biofilters for our own use and manufacture by Aquaneering Inc. This type of biofilter has the advantage of being able to operate in a plug flow mode with respect to the liquid phase and a mixed flow mode with respect to the biological phase. This unique property allows the discharge concentrations of any specific chemical to be below the minimum substrate concentration allowable. The extreem surface area per volume in this reactors can provide habatat for slow growing bacteria species and allow maximum bacterial species diversity to survive in a single reactor. This allows for removal of most biodegradable components and minimizes the "competitive exclusion" problem, where a dominate species utilizing the most concentrated nutrient source excludes other species.
Some performance data on fine media fluidized bed systems. Aquaneering also produces the feeders, suction skimmers, lime feeders, and other systems designed and tested by Scientific Hatcheries.
We have also developed a bacterial strain and bioreactor for removing MTBE from water at concentrations in the 2 ppb range. We can obtain > 99.99% removal of MTBE in a single pass through the reactor with the only waste products being CO2 and water. In the MTBE work, Aquaneering Inc. builds the skid mounted bioreactors and Scientific Hatcheries cultures the media for the bioreactors. This allows instant startup even when dealing with very slow growing bacteria such as those who metabolize MTBE.
For readers interested in system design, the linked PDF file is a power point presentation that provides the definitions of concepts like Loop Strength and the relationships between substrate concentration and reaction rate for ammonia and other pollutants. This presentation was made at the 2002 California Aquaculture Association (CAA) meeting in San Diego as part of the Aqua2002 Meeting of the WAS. High Water Quality Systems.