This study investigated the effect of a co-culture of Scenedesmus dimorphus and nitrifiers using artificial wastewater on the removal of ammonium, nitrate and phosphate in the advanced treatment. To test the synergistic effect of the co-culture, we compared the co-culture treatment with the cultures using S. dimorphus-only and nitrifiers-only treatment as controls. After 6 days of incubation, nitrate was removed only in the co-culture treatment and total amount of N removal was 1.3 times and 1.6 times higher in the co-culture treatment compared to those in the S. dimorphus- and nitrifiers-only treatments, respectively. In case of total amount of P, co-culture treatment removed 1.2 times and 12 times more P than the S. dimorphus -and nitrifiers-only conditions, respectively. This indicates that the co-culture improved removal rates for ammonium, nitrate, and phosphate. This further implies that there was no need for denitrification of nitrate and luxury uptake of P processes because nitrate and phosphate can be removed from the uptake by S. dimorphus. In addition, co-culture condition maintained high DO above 7 mg/L without artificial aeration, which is enough for nitrification, implying that co-culture has a potential to decrease or remove aeration cost in the wastewater treatment plants.

Nitrifier consortium entrapped in Ca-alginate bead were packed into aerated packed bed bioreactor and non aerated packed bed bioreactor and the performances of two bioreactors were evaluated for the removal of ammonia nitrogen from synthetic aquaculture water. Total ammonia nitrogen(TAN) removal rate was decrease in aerated packed bed bioreactor below 0.3hr of hydraulic residence time(HRT), but increased in non aerated packed bed bioreactor until 0.5hr of HRT. At HRT of 0.05 hr, TAN removal rate of non aerated packed bed bioreactor was about 335g TAN/㎥/day and the optimum ratio of packing height and inside diameter of reactor (H/D) was 4. The performance of two bioreactors indicated that non aerated packed bed bioreactor was better than aerated packed bed bioreactor in ammonia removal from synthetic aquaculture water.