A Study on Malaysian Sewage treatment plant effluent application in aquaponics system

An estimate of the amount of effluent produced from sewerage treatment plants around Malaysia run into millions of litres per day and these usually go unused, ending up in surrounding natural water bodies. The study presented in this paper was conducted to assess the feasibility of using locally pro...

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Main Authors: Ngien, S. K., Chua, M., Soong, H. Y.
Format: Conference or Workshop Item
Language:English
English
Published: 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/18766/
http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/18766/1/A%20Study%20on%20Malaysian%20Sewage%20Treatment%20Plant%20Effluent%20Application%20in%20Aquaponics%20System.pdf
http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/18766/2/A%20Study%20on%20Malaysian%20Sewage%20Treatment%20Plant%20Effluent%20Application%20in%20Aquaponics%20System.pdf
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author Ngien, S. K.
Chua, M.
Soong, H. Y.
author_facet Ngien, S. K.
Chua, M.
Soong, H. Y.
author_sort Ngien, S. K.
building UMP Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description An estimate of the amount of effluent produced from sewerage treatment plants around Malaysia run into millions of litres per day and these usually go unused, ending up in surrounding natural water bodies. The study presented in this paper was conducted to assess the feasibility of using locally produced sewerage treatment plant effluent in an aquaponics environment. The effluent used in this study came from two sewerage treatment plants that conform to Standard B of the Environmental Quality (Sewage) Regulations 2009. The aquaponics system used was a media bed unit with tilapia fishes and winged beans as the aquatic organism and vegetation, respectively. This study contained three parts where in the first part, the characteristics of the sewerage treatment plant effluent were established. In the second part, effluent was added into the aquaponics system biweekly while in the third part effluent was added daily. At the end of the third part, the fish and plant samples were tested for heavy metals. The results showed that after 14 weeks of minimal exposure continued by daily infusion of sewerage treatment plant effluent, the tilapia fishes and winged beans samples tested were within the heavy metal limits established in the Fourteenth Schedule of the Malaysian Food Regulations 1985. This shows that using sewerage treatment plant effluent in aquaponics systems is a viable method of producing food, though similar studies with longer duration and from different aspects are still needed to fully establish the safety of the food produced from these types of systems.
first_indexed 2025-11-15T02:14:28Z
format Conference or Workshop Item
id ump-18766
institution Universiti Malaysia Pahang
institution_category Local University
language English
English
last_indexed 2025-11-15T02:14:28Z
publishDate 2017
recordtype eprints
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spelling ump-187662018-07-20T08:13:13Z http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/18766/ A Study on Malaysian Sewage treatment plant effluent application in aquaponics system Ngien, S. K. Chua, M. Soong, H. Y. TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) An estimate of the amount of effluent produced from sewerage treatment plants around Malaysia run into millions of litres per day and these usually go unused, ending up in surrounding natural water bodies. The study presented in this paper was conducted to assess the feasibility of using locally produced sewerage treatment plant effluent in an aquaponics environment. The effluent used in this study came from two sewerage treatment plants that conform to Standard B of the Environmental Quality (Sewage) Regulations 2009. The aquaponics system used was a media bed unit with tilapia fishes and winged beans as the aquatic organism and vegetation, respectively. This study contained three parts where in the first part, the characteristics of the sewerage treatment plant effluent were established. In the second part, effluent was added into the aquaponics system biweekly while in the third part effluent was added daily. At the end of the third part, the fish and plant samples were tested for heavy metals. The results showed that after 14 weeks of minimal exposure continued by daily infusion of sewerage treatment plant effluent, the tilapia fishes and winged beans samples tested were within the heavy metal limits established in the Fourteenth Schedule of the Malaysian Food Regulations 1985. This shows that using sewerage treatment plant effluent in aquaponics systems is a viable method of producing food, though similar studies with longer duration and from different aspects are still needed to fully establish the safety of the food produced from these types of systems. 2017-11 Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed pdf en http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/18766/1/A%20Study%20on%20Malaysian%20Sewage%20Treatment%20Plant%20Effluent%20Application%20in%20Aquaponics%20System.pdf pdf en http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/18766/2/A%20Study%20on%20Malaysian%20Sewage%20Treatment%20Plant%20Effluent%20Application%20in%20Aquaponics%20System.pdf Ngien, S. K. and Chua, M. and Soong, H. Y. (2017) A Study on Malaysian Sewage treatment plant effluent application in aquaponics system. In: 35th Conference of the ASEAN Federation of Engineering Organizations (CAFEO 35) , 16-18 November 2017 , Bangkok, Thailand. pp. 1-7.. (Submitted) (Submitted)
spellingShingle TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
Ngien, S. K.
Chua, M.
Soong, H. Y.
A Study on Malaysian Sewage treatment plant effluent application in aquaponics system
title A Study on Malaysian Sewage treatment plant effluent application in aquaponics system
title_full A Study on Malaysian Sewage treatment plant effluent application in aquaponics system
title_fullStr A Study on Malaysian Sewage treatment plant effluent application in aquaponics system
title_full_unstemmed A Study on Malaysian Sewage treatment plant effluent application in aquaponics system
title_short A Study on Malaysian Sewage treatment plant effluent application in aquaponics system
title_sort study on malaysian sewage treatment plant effluent application in aquaponics system
topic TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
url http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/18766/
http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/18766/1/A%20Study%20on%20Malaysian%20Sewage%20Treatment%20Plant%20Effluent%20Application%20in%20Aquaponics%20System.pdf
http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/18766/2/A%20Study%20on%20Malaysian%20Sewage%20Treatment%20Plant%20Effluent%20Application%20in%20Aquaponics%20System.pdf