Phytoplankton abundance and species diversity in selected catfish ponds in monai cluster fish farm, southern basin of Kainji lake, Nigeria

Abstract

This study was done with the aim of determining the specie composition and abundance of microalgae/Phytoplankton species in water samples from Catfish ponds in Monai Cluster fish farm. It was also conducted to determine the most adapted algae specie/species in Catfish environment amidst the high nutrient concentrations in earthen Catfish ponds in Monai cluster fish farm. Information from this study will be important in deciding the algae species to be isolated and used for laboratory batch cultures utilizing recycled nutrients from these catfish ponds. Water and Plankton samples were collected once per month during the dry season and the duration of the sampling period was three months, from March, 2021 to May, 2021.This study revealed an excellent diversity of phytoplankton community in earthen fish ponds in Monai cluster fish farm. Nineteen (19) Phytoplankton genera belonging to seven (7) families. These include; seven (7) species of phytoplankton belonging to Chlorophyceae, three (3) species belonging to Bacillariophyceae/diatom, four (4) species belonging to Cyanophyceae/Cyanobacteria and one specie each belonging to Xanthophyceae, Euglenophyceae, Trebouxiophyceae and Fragilariophyceae respectively. Temperature and pH ranged from 29◦C to 31◦C and 8.6 to 10.4 respectively while nitrate and phosphate concentrations across the months ranged from 1.20mg/l to 3.53mg/l to 0.64mg/l to 4.02mg/l respectively. The list of algae species isolated was dominated by Chlorophyceae, Bacillariophyceae and Cyanophyceae. This array of specie dominance amongst these dominant groups shows that Phytoplankton samples from these ponds can be used for single specie isolation to produce unialgal cultures utilizing recycled nutrients form these ponds.