Research Article
Water Quality and Plankton in Central Arkansas Commercial Golden Shiner Ponds
Perschbacher P1, Thomforde H2 and Xie L3*1Aquaculture/Fisheries Center, 11 Upper Meadows Road, Sparta, TN 38583, USA
2Aquaculture/Fisheries Center, 210 River Gate Lance, Wilmington, NC 28412, USA
3Aquaculture/Fisheries Center, Mail Slot 4912, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff 1200 N, University Drive, Pine Bluff, USA
- *Corresponding Author:
- Xie L
Aquaculture/Fisheries Center, Mail Slot
4912 University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff
1200 N. University Drive, Pine Bluff
AR 71601, USA
Tel: 870-575-8157
Fax: 870-575-4637
E-mail: xiel@uapb.edu
Received Date: December 15, 2015; Accepted Date: January 19, 2016; Published Date: January 31, 2016
Citation: Perschbacher P, Thomforde H, Xie L (2016) Water Quality and Plankton in Central Arkansas Commercial Golden Shiner Ponds. J Fisheries Livest Prod 4:165. doi:10.4172/2332-2608.1000165
Copyright: © 2016 Perschbacher P, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
The objective of this study was to evaluate annual patterns in water quality in 9 commercial golden shiner (Notemigonous crysoleucas) ponds at three farms located in central Arkansas. Water samples were collected on 57 occasions during two consecutive years, including weekly sampling during stocking seasons (March-May) and production seasons (June-October) and bimonthly for the remaining four months. Samples from all ponds at each date were taken between 0900-1100 h with a column sampler, stored in an insulated sealed cooler, and returned to the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff for analyses. Evaluations were made of 18 variables: water temperature (Temp), dissolved oxygen (DO), pH, total dissolved solids (TDS), total ammonia-nitrogen (TAN), un-ionized ammonia (UIA), nitrite ammonia-nitrogen (NO2), chlorophyll-a (Chla), phaeophytin-a (Pheo), phytoplankton enumeration by genera (species for cyanobacteria) and zooplankton enumeration by major groups. Significant differences by month were found in all variables. Correlation analyses were performed for all data, and by stocking and production seasons-which resulted in a large number of significant correlations.