Abstract

Brackish-water aquaculture provides important livelihoods for many coastal regions worldwide, but it also generates nutrient-rich wastewater that may cause eutrophication if untreated. The use of plants to absorb dissolved nutrients and convert them into harvestable biomass has become an important research direction in aquaculture wastewater management. This study evaluated the performance of Sesuvium portulacastrum L. grown on floating rafts placed directly on the water surface of 0.5 m3 plastic tanks used for Litopenaeus vannamei culture under controlled salinity conditions ranging from 5 to 25‰. During the 28-day experiment, plant growth, shrimp growth performance, plant nutrient accumulation, and nitrogen/phosphorus mass-balance partitioning were assessed. The results showed that S. portulacastrum grew well under brackish conditions, with stronger biomass production at salinities below 15‰, while shrimp growth performance was most favorable at 10–15‰. Nutrient analysis of harvested S. portulacastrum biomass showed that the plant accumulated 19,735–29,433 mg N kg−1 DW and 1099–1912 mg P kg−1 DW, indicating its capacity to recover inorganic N and P through harvestable biomass. At 10‰ salinity, the integrated system reached the highest apparent total nitrogen removal/recovery efficiency of 46.98%, calculated from system-level mass-balance partitioning rather than water-concentration reduction alone. The areal nitrogen recovery rate in harvested S. portulacastrum biomass reached 383 mg N m−2 day−1. Although S. portulacastrum is a salt-tolerant plant, higher salinity levels (≥20‰) reduced plant biomass production and nutrient recovery efficiency. These findings indicate that integrating floating-raft S. portulacastrum into brackish shrimp-culture systems at moderate salinity, particularly 5–15‰, is a feasible strategy for converting dissolved nutrients into harvestable plant biomass.

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