The toxicity of ozone-produced oxidants to the Pacific white shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei

In marine recirculating aquaculture systems ozone, as a strong oxidant, is often used to improve water quality by reducing the pathogen load and removing inorganic and organic wastes. However, mainly when disinfection of recirculating water is desired, high ozone dosage is required, which may lead to toxicity problems for the cultured species. Acute toxicity of ozone-produced oxidants (OPO) to juvenile Pacific white shrimp, Litopenaeus vannamei, was assessed by determining the medium lethal concentration (LC50). Shrimp were exposed to a series of OPO concentrations for 96 h. Toxicity was analysed using standard probit regression. The 24, 48, 72 and 96 h LC50 values were 0.84, 0.61, 0.54 and 0.50 mg/l chlorine equivalent, respectively. A safe level for residual oxidant concentration was calculated and further verified by chronic exposure experiments. While long-term exposure of juvenile white shrimp to an OPO concentration of 0.06 mg/l revealed no observable effect, long-term exposures to 0.10 and 0.15 mg/l induced incidence of soft shell syndrome which led to mortalities due to cannibalism. Thus, an OPO concentration of 0.06 mg/l is suggested to be the maximum safe exposure level for rearing juvenile L. vannamei. Furthermore, we proved this safe level to be sufficient to control and reduce bacterial biomass in the recirculating process water.