Decoupled FLOCponics systems as an alternative approach to reduce the protein level of tilapia juveniles’ diet in integrated agri-aquaculture production

Metadata

Cite key: pinhoDecoupledFLOCponicsSystems2021
Item type: Journal Article
Authors: S. Pinho, J.P. Lima, L.H. David, M.S. Oliveira, S. Goddek, D.J. Carneiro, K.J. Keesman, M.C. Portella
Affiliation: Centro de Aquicultura da Unesp (Caunesp), Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp), Jaboticabal, SP, Brazil (Pinho, Lima, David, Carneiro, Portella); Mathematical and Statistical Methods (Biometris), Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands (Pinho, Goddek, Keesman); Faculdade de Ciências Agrárias e Veterinárias, Unesp “Júlio de Mesquita Filho”, Jaboticabal, SP, Brazil (Oliveira, Carneiro)
Journal: Aquaculture 543 (2021) 736932
Date: 05/2021 (accepted 19 May 2021; available online 21 May 2021)
Date added: 2026-08-10
DOI: 10.1016/j.aquaculture.2021.736932
Funding: São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP, project 2017/50431-9; PhD grants 2018/13235-0, 2019/21315-6, 2018/20463-9, 2019/21703-6 and CNPq 140838/2018-0 to individual authors); Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO, project 438-17-402); Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES, Finance Code 001); CNPq fellowship #311108/2017 (Portella) — part of the SUGI/Food-Water-Energy-Nexus “CITYFOOD” programme
URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2021.736932
PDF: Pinho et al_2021_Decoupled FLOCponics systems as an alternative approach to reduce the protein.pdf

Opinion

A genuinely unusual and well-instrumented system-comparison paper — seven treatments in one experiment (BFT fish-only, HP plant-only, DAPS conventional decoupled aquaponics, and DFP at four crude-protein levels), a completely randomized design, and separate water-quality monitoring of both subsystems. The core result is clean and useful: DFP-24/28 tilapia matched DAPS-32 growth (protein sparing genuinely works even once plants are attached), DFP-32/BFT-32 outgrew everything else, and lettuce growth was statistically indistinguishable across all five plant-bearing treatments in both cycles — a rare case where an aquaponics paper reports a true null on yield rather than a small aquaponic penalty. The mid-trial loss of DFP-36 (>80% mortality from a heat/DO/solids cascade) is reported transparently rather than papered over, which is a mark in the paper’s favour, though it does mean the highest-CP DFP arm is a designed-but-missing cell rather than a tested one. My main reservations: (1) the Discussion’s fertilizer-savings percentages for DFP-32 don’t reconcile with the paper’s own Results-section raw fertilizer volumes (see Extraction notes) — the qualitative finding survives but the exact magnitude quoted in the abstract-adjacent discussion should not be cited without checking this; (2) this vault’s 87-column schema has no real home for protein-use-efficiency indices (PER/PPV/CPwg) or biofloc-specific parameters (settleable solids, floc volume), which is exactly the paper’s main methodological contribution — all of that valuable data is preserved in Experimental Remarks rather than the structured cells, so anyone querying trials.csv alone would miss the paper’s central finding. Treat the trials.csv row as a growth/water-quality summary, not a substitute for reading the paper’s Tables 4 and 5 directly.

Abstract

Decoupled FLOCponics (DFP) is a promising aquaponics approach which takes advantage of the nutritional benefits of biofloc technology (BFT). Enabling the use of less protein in the fish diets is one of the benefits of BFT. The effect of the reduction of protein content, and consequently the input of nitrogen, on fish and plant production in DFP systems has not yet been investigated. This study was designed to investigate and evaluate the production of lettuce and tilapia juveniles in a DFP system using different levels of crude protein (CP) in the fish diets. The zootechnical performance of tilapia juveniles and lettuce growth in the DFP system were evaluated, using different diets containing 24, 28, 32, and 36% CP. Fish production in DFP systems was compared to those reared in traditional decoupled aquaponics systems (DAPS) and in biofloc-based systems (BFT), both fed with 32% CP diet. The experimental period of tilapia juvenile production lasted 56 days. Lettuce production in two cycles was also performed in DFP systems with different CP levels and their growth was compared to those in DAPS and hydroponics systems, as control treatments. In Cycle 1, the seedling phase was evaluated in a 14-day trial. In Cycle 2, the final production phase was performed for 21 days until harvest. The physical-chemical parameters of the water were monitored in the aquaculture and hydroponic subsystems. High mortality of fish occurred in DFP-36 in the middle of the experiment, thus this treatment was discontinued. The results showed that tilapia reared in DFP and fed with 24 and 28% CP (DFP-24 and DFP-28) grew similarly to those in DAPS fed with 32% CP diet. Fish in DFP-32 and BFT fed with 32% CP diet grew similarly and above the other treatments. Additionally, plant growth results showed no differences in both cycles among all treatments. With respect to water parameters, even though more nutrients were inputted in the treatments with high CP content in the aquaculture subsystem, the mean values of nitrogen compounds and orthophosphate were similar in all treatments. For water parameters in the hydroponics subsystems, only the mean values of pH in Cycle 1 were statistically different in the plant treatments. The results obtained in this study indicate that using less CP in fish diets to produce lettuce and tilapia juveniles is technically possible and feasible in a decoupled FLOCponics system.

Summary

The authors ran a single 56-day, completely randomized experiment at a 100 m² greenhouse (Caunesp, Jaboticabal, Brazil) comparing seven treatments: a fish-only biofloc control (BFT-32%CP), a plant-only hydroponic control (HP), a traditional decoupled aquaponics system (DAPS-32%CP, RAS-based), and four decoupled FLOCponics (DFP) arms fed 24, 28, 32 and 36% crude-protein diets (DFP-36 was discontinued mid-trial after a heat/oxygen/solids event killed over 80% of its fish). Nile tilapia juveniles (masculinized, 1.42 g at stocking) were reared for the full 56 days with three replicate systems per fish treatment, while butterhead lettuce was grown in two separate, sequential cycles (a 14-day seedling phase and a 21-day final-production phase) with six replicate plant tanks per treatment, fed either well water (HP) or the corresponding aquaculture subsystem’s effluent. Tilapia in DFP-24 and DFP-28 grew statistically indistinguishably from DAPS-32 despite 4-8 percentage points less dietary protein, while DFP-32 and BFT-32 (both 32% CP, biofloc-based) grew significantly larger than the other three treatments and had the best protein-use efficiency (PER, PPV, CPwg); FCR and survival did not differ significantly among any treatment. Lettuce growth (height, fresh/dry weight, leaf count, area productivity) showed no significant differences among any of the five plant-bearing treatments in either cycle, meaning the protein reduction and the choice of aquaculture technology (RAS vs biofloc) had no detectable cost to the plant side. Water quality differed measurably between aquaculture technologies (DO, pH, EC and TDS all differed significantly among the five aquaculture-subsystem treatments) but nitrogenous compounds and orthophosphate did not differ, and on the hydroponic side only Cycle-1 pH differed significantly among treatments. The paper’s headline argument is that decoupled FLOCponics makes it technically feasible to cut dietary protein without sacrificing either fish or plant productivity, and that less commercial fertilizer top-up was needed in higher-nutrient-loading treatments (DFP-32 needed the least of the four aquaponic treatments, though see Extraction notes on an internal inconsistency in the exact reported percentages).

Experiment data

Location: Aquaculture Center of São Paulo State University (Caunesp), Jaboticabal, São Paulo, Brazil — 100 m² greenhouse, 1.5 mm plastic liner, 40%-shading net, both movable

Design: Completely randomized experiment (paper’s own words, p.3), 7 treatments total: BFT-32 (fish-only), HP (plant-only), DAPS-32, DFP-24, DFP-28, DFP-32, DFP-36 (discontinued). 3 replicate aquaculture subsystems per fish treatment; each aquaculture subsystem fed 2 plant tanks (PTs), giving 6 PT replicates per plant treatment (HP run as its own 6 independent PTs on well water). One-way ANOVA per parameter across the relevant treatment set, Tukey’s test, alpha=0.05; Shapiro-Wilk and Levene’s tests checked first

Replicates / n: 3 (fish production and aquaculture-subsystem water quality); 6 (lettuce productivity and hydroponic-subsystem water quality)

Duration: 56 days total (fish, continuous); lettuce Cycle 1 = 14 d (seedling phase, 7->21 days after sowing); lettuce Cycle 2 = 21 d (final production phase, transplant at 21 d.a.s. to harvest)

Organisms: Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) (masculinized juveniles) / Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) (butter type)

Statistics: One-way ANOVA + Tukey’s test, alpha=0.05; normality (Shapiro-Wilk) and homogeneity of variance (Levene’s) checked first

Tilapia growth: DFP-32 and BFT-32 (both 32% CP) grew similarly and significantly above DFP-24, DFP-28 and DAPS-32 (final weight 34.6-34.8 g vs 28.1-29.6 g, p<0.001); DFP-24 and DFP-28 (24-28% CP) grew statistically indistinguishable from DAPS-32 (32% CP)

Feed Conversion Rate (FCR) and survival: not significantly different among any of the 5 analysed fish treatments (FCR 0.89-1.07, p=0.183; survival 90.3-98.4%, p=0.566)

Protein-use efficiency: significantly higher in biofloc-based treatments (mainly DFP-24) than in DAPS-32 — PER 3.82 (DFP-24) vs 2.93 (DAPS-32), p=0.021; PPV 55.82% vs 40.11%, p=0.004

Lettuce growth: no significant differences among DFP-24, DFP-28, DFP-32, DAPS-32 and HP in either cycle, for any growth parameter measured (all p>0.05)

Water quality: DO, pH, EC and TDS differed significantly among the 5 aquaculture-subsystem treatments (p<=0.024); ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and orthophosphate did not (p>0.05); only Cycle-1 hydroponic-subsystem pH differed significantly among plant treatments (p=0.009)

Protein sparing and biofloc benefit under integration

This paper: Reducing dietary crude protein from 32% to 24-28% in the DFP system produced tilapia that grew statistically indistinguishably from DAPS-32 (traditional decoupled aquaponics at the “normal” 32% CP), while protein-use efficiency indices (PER, PPV, CPwg) were significantly better in the lower-CP biofloc treatments than in DAPS-32. At matched 32% CP, both biofloc-based treatments (DFP-32 and the fish-only BFT-32 control) grew 22.7% larger than DAPS-32 — closely matching the paper’s own stated recomputation. This is the paper’s central claim: the well-documented nutritional benefit of biofloc technology (natural food supplementing the formulated diet) survives integration with a hydroponic subsystem in a decoupled layout, addressing a problem the authors say has undermined coupled FLOCponics in prior work (low biofloc volumes, unstable pH). Notably, FCR itself did not differ significantly among treatments — the authors call this “somewhat surprising” since better FCR is usually reported for biofloc vs RAS systems, and attribute the efficiency gains instead to PER/PPV/CPwg.

Compared with:

todo Luo et al. 2014 — biofloc-based tilapia culture showed better growth, digestive activity, welfare vs RAS at matched feed, same-direction finding as this paper’s DFP-vs-DAPS comparison
todo Long et al. 2015 — biofloc technology improved growth, digestive enzyme activity, hematology and immune response in genetically improved farmed tilapia, cited alongside Luo et al. and Hisano et al. as the established “biofloc grows fish better than RAS” literature this paper extends to a decoupled/integrated context
todo Hisano et al. 2019 — Nile tilapia in monoculture/polyculture, biofloc vs RAS, same improved-performance direction
todo Mansour and Esteban 2017 — tilapia reared in BFT grew significantly more even after protein was cut from 30% to 20%, directly supporting this paper’s protein-sparing argument
todo da Silva et al. 2018 — 28% CP suggested sufficient for high growth performance of tilapia in BFT, cited as the basis for this paper’s mid-range CP levels
todo Pinho et al. 2021 (Aquaculture International) — companion paper, “Integrated production of Nile tilapia juveniles and lettuce using biofloc technology” (Aquac. Int. 29:37-56); the paper that coined the term “FLOCponics” (per this paper’s Introduction, p.2) and reported negative plant-growth effects under coupled FLOCponics that this paper’s decoupled design was built to address — NOT the same paper as the one being extracted here despite the shared first author, year, and near-identical author list

Fish mortality event and DFP-36 exclusion

This paper: DFP-36 (36% CP) was run identically to the other DFP arms but suffered catastrophic mortality after two days of ~40°C greenhouse temperatures: high nutrient load, high settleable solids (biofloc volume 100 mL/L by Imhoff cone) and high water temperature (31.9°C) combined to crash dissolved oxygen to 0.8 mg/L at the end of day 40, killing over 80% of the fish across all three DFP-36 replicates. The treatment was discontinued and excluded from all analysis and results tables — the paper is explicit and transparent about this rather than silently dropping the arm. The authors link the underlying cause to the same solids-accumulation trade-off that motivated the decoupled design in the first place (para on p.8): settleable solids in some aquaculture-subsystem readings exceeded the 50 mL/L threshold Hargreaves (2013) associates with oxygen-depletion risk in biofloc culture, and DFP-36 (having received the most feed/nitrogen input of any surviving-until-then arm) likely accumulated the most solids.

Compared with:

todo Hargreaves 2013 — settleable-solids values above 50 mL/L do not favor fish growth/nutrition and risk oxygen depletion and higher electricity demand in biofloc culture; cited as the benchmark this paper’s Table 2 values (up to ~150 mL/L max) exceed in places
todo Lenz et al. 2018 — coupled FLOCponics (lettuce on tilapia-BFT effluent) reported difficulty maintaining low solids in the hydroponic subsystem while keeping sufficient bioflocs in the fish tank, the same trade-off this paper’s decoupled layout was designed to solve

Lettuce growth and fertilizer input

This paper: No significant differences in any lettuce growth parameter (leaf/root height, wet/dry weight, leaf count, area productivity) were found among DFP-24, DFP-28, DFP-32, DAPS-32 and HP in either the 14-day seedling cycle or the 21-day final-production cycle. This held despite different fish-diet CP levels and correspondingly different aquaculture-subsystem nutrient loads. Less commercial fertilizer top-up was needed in the higher-nutrient-loading treatments: DFP-32 required the least fertilizer of the five plant treatments in both cycles, though the exact reported percentage reductions relative to HP do not reconcile with the paper’s own raw fertilizer-volume figures (see Extraction notes, WARN-MATERIAL). The authors note conventional hydroponic fertilizer dosing may itself have been suboptimal (nutrient imbalance), which could explain why HP did not clearly outperform the aquaponic/FLOCponic treatments despite receiving the most fertilizer.

Compared with:

todo Goddek et al. 2016b — anaerobic/aerobic fish-sludge supernatant used as extra hydroponic lettuce fertilizer had positive effects; cited as a rationale for the authors’ proposed future direction of mineralizing DFP bioflocs as a fertilizer supplement
todo Fimbres-Acedo et al. 2020 — biofloc-technology residual water used for photoautotrophic hydroponic production with Chlorella, and (elsewhere in this paper’s Introduction) cited among studies finding negative effects of BFT effluent on plant growth in FLOCponics, a contrast this paper’s null result addresses by using a decoupled rather than coupled layout
todo Rahman 2010 — effluent-water characterization for intensive tilapia culture applied to integrated lettuce aquaponics; cited among prior negative-effect FLOCponics findings

Linked claims

Citations to chase

Extraction notes

Type classification: Recorded as experiment. The Methods section explicitly states “A completely randomized experiment was designed” (p.3), with defined treatments, true replication (3 aquaculture-subsystem replicates, 6 plant-tank replicates), and formal statistical comparison (one-way ANOVA + Tukey’s test, normality/homogeneity pre-checked) — a cleaner match to SCHEMA.md’s experiment test than several other vault papers that omit the word “randomized” (e.g. pantanellaAquaponicsHydroponicsProduction2012).

Trial structure: Four trials.csv rows: T1=DFP-24, T2=DFP-28, T3=DFP-32, T4=DAPS-32, each paired against the same shared HP (hydroponics-only) control, repeated in the HYD-labelled cells per SCHEMA.md’s one-row-per-aquaponic-treatment convention. Two treatments are deliberately NOT given their own row: BFT-32 (tilapia-only biofloc culture, no plant pairing at all — “a tilapia culture in BFT without integration with lettuce production”, p.3 — so there is no aquaponic system to anchor a row on; its fish-performance and water-quality data are fully preserved in each row’s Experimental Remarks as the paper’s key benchmark) and DFP-36 (discontinued after >80% fish mortality on day 40; the paper states explicitly that “this treatment was discontinued, and its results were not analyzed and presented”, so no numbers exist for it anywhere in Results — retained only as narrative context, see the note’s “Fish mortality event” section above).

Two lettuce cycles, one row per treatment (judgment call): this paper ran lettuce in two genuinely separate plantings (Cycle 1 seedling phase, 14 d; Cycle 2 final-production phase, 21 d) on the SAME continuous 56-day aquaculture-subsystem replicates, unlike pantanellaAquaponicsHydroponicsProduction2012’s two independent crop cycles (which used physically distinct AP systems per cycle and were therefore split into 4 rows for 2 densities x 2 cycles). Here, splitting by cycle would require duplicating every fish-side cell (Table 4 fish performance is reported once, for the whole 56-day trial, not per plant cycle) across two otherwise-identical rows per treatment, multiplying the paper’s weight in any pooled analysis without adding new fish information. Per SCHEMA.md’s explicit tie-breaker (“if unsure, keep one row… merging is reversible, un-multiplying is not”), one row per aquaponic treatment was used. Cycle 2 (final production, closer to a true harvest and the schema’s “Days Plant after transplant… harvest day” framing) was used for the dedicated plant-growth cells (Plant height, Leaf count, Plant fresh weight, Plant dry matter, AP/HYD productivity); the full Cycle 1 dataset is preserved verbatim in each row’s Experimental Remarks rather than discarded. This is flagged here explicitly as a judgment call for the user to revisit if a future schema revision adds a “cycle” dimension.

⚠️WARN-MATERIAL fertilizer-volume percentage claims for DFP-32, Discussion (p.9-10) vs raw Results figures (p.6). Results p.6 states raw fertilizer volume added per plant tank per cycle: Cycle 1 — HP 316.2 mL, DAPS 221.4 mL, DFP-32 208.1 mL, DFP-28 209.8 mL, DFP-24 213.6 mL; Cycle 2 — HP 366.2 mL, DAPS 318.9 mL, DFP-32 314.9 mL, DFP-28 315.9 mL, DFP-24 322.0 mL. Discussion p.9-10 states: “In Cycle 1, the volume of fertilizer added to a DFP-32 plant tank was approximately 51.9% and 6.4% lower than in HP and DAPS, respectively. In Cycle 2, these differences between DFP-32 to HP and DAPS dropped to 16.3% and 1.3%, respectively.” Recomputing directly from the Results values: Cycle 1 DFP-32 vs HP = (316.2-208.1)/316.2 = 34.2% (not 51.9%); Cycle 1 DFP-32 vs DAPS = (221.4-208.1)/221.4 = 6.0% (matches the stated 6.4% within rounding); Cycle 2 DFP-32 vs HP = (366.2-314.9)/366.2 = 14.0% (not 16.3%); Cycle 2 DFP-32 vs DAPS = (318.9-314.9)/318.9 = 1.3% (matches exactly). Both DAPS-relative percentages check out against the raw data; both HP-relative percentages are off by a large, consistent margin (about 18 and 2 percentage points respectively) — this reads as a genuine arithmetic or transcription error in the Discussion’s HP comparison specifically, not a rounding artifact, though which correct value the authors intended cannot be recovered from the paper. The raw, twice-stated Results volumes (unaffected either way) are recorded in each trial row’s Experimental Remarks under NO COLUMN; the Discussion’s HP-relative percentages are not entered in any cell and should not be cited without checking this note. No trials.csv cell is directly affected since FUE AP/FUE HYD are NR (the paper never expresses fertilizer input as a yield-normalized efficiency ratio, only as absolute mL and, inconsistently, as a %). Counted as one MATERIAL-severity flag toward this note’s quality score.

WARN-MINOR PER value, DFP-24 (p.9 vs Table 4). Discussion text states “the results of PER (3.83)… show the highest efficiency” for DFP-24; Table 4 gives PER = 3.82 ± 0.19 for the same treatment. A one-hundredth rounding mismatch with no effect on interpretation or any cell (PER has no dedicated trials.csv column; both values recorded together under NO COLUMN in remarks).

Water compartment note (applies to all 4 rows): this paper reports two separate water-quality panels with different parameters in each — Table 2 (aquaculture subsystem: fish tank + RFS + MBBR/filters; DO, TAN, NO2-N, NO3-N, orthophosphate, alkalinity, settleable solids, plus temp/pH/EC/TDS) and Table 3 (hydroponic subsystem: plant tanks only; temperature, EC, pH only, split by Cycle 1/Cycle 2). Per SCHEMA.md’s compartment rule (“take the plant bed / hydroponic unit value… note which compartment was used”), the Aq pH, EC and Water temperature cells use the plant-tank (Table 3, Cycle 2) values. Dissolved Oxigen, TAN/NH4-N, NO2-N and NO3-N cells instead use the aquaculture-subsystem (Table 2) values, because the plant-bed side never measured these four parameters at all — this is a forced substitution due to data availability, not a preference override of the compartment rule, and is stated in full in each row’s remarks.

[not reported] / NR fields, grouped across all 4 rows:

Fish: Total Feed (kg), Fish biomass created (kg) — FCR and per-fish weight gain are both given, but total feed consumed and tank-level biomass totals are never stated; computing either would be derivation. Feed N and K composition (Table 1 gives only crude protein, ether extract, crude fiber, ash, nitrogen-free extract, Ca, P, gross energy — no separate %N or %K reported). Raw fish-body proximate composition (CP0/CPf, dry matter %) — measured per Methods (freeze-dried whole-body samples via Leco FP528) specifically to feed the PER/PPV/CPwg calculations, but the raw percentages themselves are never tabulated, only the final efficiency indices.
Water: Lat/Long — Jaboticabal, SP, Brazil is named as the institutional/site location but no coordinates are stated anywhere in the paper; not filled from outside knowledge per the prime directive. Water classification and further categorisation of Water type — the paper names “artesian well water” as the fill/make-up source but does not apply a categorical classification term.
Plant: SPAD — no chlorophyll meter or pigment measurement of any kind is reported for lettuce in this paper. Plant Category and Fish Category — the paper never applies a categorical term to either organism (only species/strain names and “butter lettuce” as a type descriptor), so left NR per SCHEMA.md’s own-wording rule rather than substituting an external taxonomy.
Site: Artificial Lighting — no supplemental lighting is mentioned anywhere; the paper explicitly describes “passively controlled climatic conditions” (p.10) with only movable shading/plastic covers, no active heating/cooling/lighting system for the greenhouse air (distinct from the 500 W tank-water heaters, which are recorded under Control Parameters).

NO COLUMN items (full figures preserved in each trial row’s Experimental Remarks): protein-use efficiency indices PER/PPV/CPwg (Table 4, all 5 fish treatments) — arguably the paper’s single most important dataset, with no dedicated schema column; full Table 1 diet formulation (ingredients and centesimal composition for all 4 CP levels); BFT-32 fish-performance and water-quality benchmark data (no row of its own, see Trial structure above); DFP-36 mortality-event narrative and figures (temperature, DO, settleable-solids values at the time of the crash); Cycle 1 (seedling-phase) full lettuce growth dataset for all 5 plant treatments; raw fertilizer volumes (mL) per treatment per cycle; marketable-plant percentages (83% Cycle 1, 100% Cycle 2, not broken out per treatment so not a per-row figure); wet root weight and root height (Table 5 reports these separately from the leaf-focused Plant fresh weight/Plant height cells used here, since the schema has no dedicated root-mass or root-height column).

Tags judgment call: Tagged Meta/Fish/Tilapia (Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus, reared and directly measured in all four trial rows plus the BFT-32 reference) and Meta/Plant/Lettuce (Lactuca sativa, “butter” type, reusing the vault’s existing generic Lettuce tag rather than creating a “Butterhead” sub-facet, matching the precedent set by pantanellaAquaponicsHydroponicsProduction2012 for “romaine”). Meta/Region/South-America reused from barbosaPerformanceNileTilapia2020, dasilvaProductionTambaquiJuveniles2025 and others (Brazil). No new tag facets introduced.

New wikilink targets introduced: S. Pinho, J.P. Lima, L.H. David, M.S. Oliveira, D.J. Carneiro, M.C. Portella (no existing notes for these authors found in the vault). Reused existing canonical author forms S. Goddek and K.J. Keesman exactly as spelled in goddekNavigatingDecoupledAquaponic2016.md and goddekNecessityDesalinationTechnology2018.md. Reused Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) and Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) as already used in pantanellaAquaponicsHydroponicsProduction2012.md. Note: an existing vault citation-to-chase, [[Pinho David Garcia Keesman Portella Goddek 2021]] (in baniowdehBarleyHordeumVulgare2025.md), appears to reference yet a THIRD, different Pinho-coauthored 2021 item (author order/inclusion doesn’t match either this paper’s or the Aquac. Int. companion paper’s byline) — flagged here for the user’s awareness rather than silently merged with either.

PDF quality: Clean text layer throughout (13 pages, standard two-column Elsevier typesetting), fully extractable via pdfplumber, no OCR needed. One cosmetic typo: Table 2’s column header row prints “DPF - 24” and “DPF - 28” (letters transposed) instead of “DFP - 24”/“DFP - 28”, while the table’s own caption and every other table/figure in the paper correctly say “DFP” — treated as a typesetting typo with no effect on which column’s data was read (order and values are internally consistent with Tables 3, 4 and 5).

Source: Pinho et al_2021_Decoupled FLOCponics systems as an alternative approach to reduce the protein.pdf

Data Tables

Structured data extracted from this paper into the vault's trials.csv / plant_measurements.csv datasets. Fields the paper didn't report are omitted. Download the full datasets (measurements).

Trial Parameters

pinhoDecoupledFLOCponicsSystems2021-T1

Fish

Field	Value
Fish	Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), masculinized juveniles
Initial Stock density	0.43 (initial biomass at stocking, p.4; fish-count density separately stated as 300 fish/m3)
FCR	1.07 +/- 0.05
SGR	5.23 +/- 0.13
Protein	24.0
P	0.66 (6.6 g/kg, isophosphoric across all diets, Table 1)
% of body weight	12-5 (declining ration schedule with fish size, not a single nominal value; Raguife® guide, p.4)
Fish size initial	1.42 +/- 0.03
Fish size final	28.06 +/- 2.04
Feed routine	Hand-fed 4x/day at 08:30, 11:00, 14:30 and 18:00 h; ration 12% to 5% of body weight declining as fish grew (Raguife® commercial schedule); >=20% of fish per tank weighed weekly to adjust feed amount (p.4)
Feed regime	24% CP diet (Table 1): centesimal crude protein 240.0 g/kg (24.0%), ether extract 96.1 g/kg, crude fiber 56.1 g/kg, ash 58.1 g/kg, nitrogen-free extract 50.0 g/kg, Ca 13.4 g/kg, P 6.6 g/kg, gross energy 17.0 MJ/kg; isoenergetic/isophosphoric with the other 3 diets; animal-source protein fixed at 25% of total protein (3:2:1 poultry by-product:fish meal:feather meal)
Fish survival rate	96.59 +/- 2.32
Fish weight gain	26.63 +/- 2.05
Fish trial duration (days)	56

Water

Field	Value
Water recycle	NA (no continuous recirculation pump in biofloc-based subsystems; Fig. 2 caption states water flow was manually controlled/non-continuous for BFT/DFP tanks, p.4)
Water volume in the system	380 (fish tank only, p.4; subsystem also has a 100 L RFS not summed here to avoid derivation; plant side: 60 L per PT x 2 PTs)
Water type	Artesian well water (fill/make-up); NR categorised further
Daily Water exchange rate	2 (percent of initial plant-tank (PT) volume added daily as make-up water to replace evaporation, p.5; not a designed system-wide discharge/exchange rate)
Aq pH	6.64 +/- 0.24
pHOptimal	5.5-6.5 (target range for plant-tank (PT) pH; diluted phosphoric acid added when pH exceeded 6.5, p.5)
Dissolved Oxigen	7.07 +/- 0.32
EC	1.72 +/- 0.14
Water temperature	23.44 +/- 0.22
TAN / NH4-N	0.29 +/- 0.05
NO2-N	0.27 +/- 0.07
NO3-N	0.74 +/- 0.04

Plant

Field	Value
Plant	Lettuce (Lactuca sativa), butter type
Details	Cycle 2 (final production phase): hydroponic seedlings at 21 d.a.s. (2.04+/-0.57 g) transplanted, grown 21 d to harvest, 8 plants/PT (0.42 m2), 19 plants/m2. Cycle 1 (seedling phase, 14 d, 7->21 d.a.s., 0.59+/-0.08 g at transplant) run earlier in the same aquaculture subsystem; its full growth dataset is given in Experimental Remarks rather than the harvest-oriented cells below (see TRIAL DEFINITION).
Days Plant after transplant	21
Plants/m2	19
Plant height	26.20 +/- 2.45
Leaf count	27.94 +/- 2.83
Plant fresh weight	88.45 +/- 20.67 (wet LEAF weight only, Cycle 2; wet root weight 5.23 +/- 1.53 g reported separately, see remarks)
Plant dry matter	1.35 +/- 0.17 g (dry LEAF weight, not %; Cycle 2, Table 5)

System & Setup

Field	Value
System type	Decoupled FLOCponics (DFP), biofloc-based; DWC hydroponic subsystem; unidirectional flow from fish tank -> RFS/bag-filter -> plant tanks
Media Details	Deep-water culture (DWC) floating system; 36 individual plant tanks (PTs), 0.42 m2 surface / 60 L volume each, 8 plants/PT in an expanded polystyrene block sized to the PT area (p.4)
Biological system already in use	Y (25% of each aquaculture subsystem’s starting volume filled with water from 60-day mature RAS/BFT inoculums to pre-establish MBBR nitrifying biofilm (DAPS) or biofloc microbial community (BFT/DFP) before stocking (p.4))
Air supplement	Y (2 HP air blower per system, distributed via AquaDrop Air® micro-perforated diffusers in fish tank (16 cm-diameter diffuser ring) and, for DAPS, also in MBBR and PTs (15 cm diffuser length) (p.4))
Iron supplemented	Y (Commercial fertilizer (Dripsol Folhosas®) used for PT top-up in ALL treatments (incl. HP) contains 0.15% Fe as one of its stated micronutrients (p.5); not a treatment-specific Fe amendment)
Remineralization	Y (Commercial fertilizer solution added to PTs of every treatment (incl. AP) at system start-up to reach target EC, and topped up only in the first 2 days of each plant cycle if EC fell below target; volume calculated via VAfs=(ECs-ECPT)xVPT/ECcfs (p.5); this is a fertilizer top-up scheme, not a fish-sludge remineralization process)
pH Buffers	Y (Diluted (1:1) phosphoric acid added to PTs when pH exceeded 6.5; calcium hydroxide added to fish tanks when alkalinity fell below 80 mg/L (p.4-5))
Climate control	Y (Passive only (paper’s own words: ‘carried out under passively controlled climatic conditions’, p.10); movable 40%-shading net and movable plastic side panels, closed when inside greenhouse temperature <28C or at night)
Nutrient supplemented	Y (Commercial fertilizer Dripsol Folhosas® (22.5% N, 9% P, 30% K, 4% Mg, 18.5% Ca, 6% S, 0.15% Fe, 0.085% Zn, 0.05% Mn, 0.015% Cu, 0.004% Mo, 0.003% B) dosed into ALL plant tanks (HP and every AP treatment) to reach target EC (1.2 mS/cm Cycle 1, 1.7 mS/cm Cycle 2), p.5)
Equipment	Horiba U-52G multiparameter meter (DO/pH/EC/TDS/temperature); 500 W thermostat heaters (fish tanks); air blower (2 HP) with AquaDrop Air® micro-perforated diffusers; Leco FP528 Nitrogen/Protein analyzer; Edwards Pirani 501 freeze dryer; C.A.F. model 22S meat grinder (fish tissue prep)
Control Parameters	Fish-tank heater setpoint 27C; PT pH target 5.5-6.5; PT EC target 1.2 mS/cm (Cycle 1) / 1.7 mS/cm (Cycle 2); biofloc C:N ratio target 15:1 via molasses dosing 3x/week (BFT/DFP only); fish-tank alkalinity floor 80 mg/L (Ca(OH)2 added below this)
Combination	Nile tilapia (masculinized juveniles) and butter lettuce; decoupled FLOCponics at 24% dietary crude protein vs shared hydroponics control

Site

Field	Value
Region	South America
Country	Brazil
Average room Temperature	34.2 +/- 4.1 (greenhouse-inside air temperature mean, Fig. 3, 56-day period; distinct from PT/fish-tank water temperature)

Results & Statistics

Field	Value
Measured Unit	g (leaf/root height in cm; weights in g); g/plant (wet leaf weight -> Plant fresh weight cell); g/plant (dry leaf weight -> Plant dry matter cell, reported as dry weight not %); g fw/m2 (productivity -> AP/HYD cells)
Statistic Details	Shapiro-Wilk (normality) + Levene’s test (homogeneity of variance) checked first; one-way ANOVA on each parameter across all 5 plant treatments (DFP-24, DFP-28, DFP-32, DAPS-32, HP) simultaneously; Tukey’s test for significant differences; alpha=0.05 (p.5-6)
Statistically analysed	Y
Replicates (n)	3 (fish production & aquaculture-subsystem water quality, p.5); 6 (plant productivity & hydroponic-subsystem water quality, p.5)
AP	487.38 +/- 45.52
HYD	504.19 (HP Cycle-2 productivity, Table 5)

Experimental Remarks: TRIAL DEFINITION: this row = DFP-24 (decoupled FLOCponics, biofloc-based aquaculture subsystem, 24% crude-protein diet) vs the shared hydroponics (HP) control, recorded in the HYD-labelled cells. DFP = decoupled FLOCponics: biofloc-based aquaculture subsystem (circular fish tank + radial flow settler (RFS), NO moving-bed biofilter), water periodically decanted/filtered (68 um bag filter) before unidirectional transfer to plant tanks; decanted bioflocs returned to the fish tank except for sampling events. Paired control = HP (well-water-only hydroponic treatment, no fish, no aquaculture subsystem). Design: completely randomized experiment (paper’s own words, p.3), 3 independent replicate aquaculture subsystems per fish/AP treatment feeding 2 plant tanks (PTs) each = 6 PT replicates per plant treatment; HP itself run as 6 independent PTs on well water only. DFP-24 is one of four dose-response CP levels tested within the DFP system type (24/28/32% CP rows here; 36% CP discontinued, see NO COLUMN below). Plant-growth cells (Plant height, Leaf count, Plant fresh weight, Plant dry matter, AP/HYD productivity) use Cycle 2 (‘final production phase’, 21 d harvest) as the single most harvest-comparable dataset, per SCHEMA.md’s water-quality-style ‘one summary value’ convention extended here to plant growth since the paper ran two genuinely separate plantings (new seedlings each time) rather than two harvests of one crop. Cycle 1 (‘seedling phase’, 14 d, transplant 7->21 d.a.s.) used the SAME aquaculture-subsystem replicates and is fully preserved below since it is real, non-redundant data, not because the SCHEMA requires two rows — SCHEMA.md’s explicit instruction (‘if unsure, keep one row… merging is reversible, un-multiplying is not’) was followed in preference to the alternative of doubling every trial (4 -> 8 rows) as was done for pantanellaAquaponicsHydroponicsProduction2012’s two independent crop cycles; unlike that paper, here the AQUACULTURE side (fish performance, Table 4; aquaculture-subsystem water quality, Table 2) was measured ONCE over the full continuous 56-day trial and is not split by plant cycle at all, so treating the two lettuce plantings as separate trials would require artificially duplicating every fish-side cell across two rows with no new fish information in the second. CYCLE 1 FULL DATA (Table 5, mean+/-SD, n=6 PTs, all ns p>0.05 across all 5 treatments): leaf height 9.76+/-0.46 cm, root height 19.14+/-2.78 cm, total wet weight 13.50+/-0.90 g, total dry weight 0.79+/-0.06 g, productivity 251.22+/-16.69 g/m2, leaves 8.98+/-0.50. HP Cycle 1 (shared control, same for all 4 rows): leaf height 10.55+/-0.52 cm, root height 20.71+/-2.18 cm, total wet weight 14.36+/-0.98 g, total dry weight 0.86+/-0.06 g, productivity 267.24+/-18.15 g/m2, leaves 8.98+/-0.60. | WARN-MATERIAL fertilizer-volume percentage-reduction claims for DFP-32 (Discussion, p.9-10) vs raw fertilizer-volume figures (Results, p.6). Results p.6 states raw total fertilizer volume added per plant tank per cycle: Cycle 1 — HP 316.2 mL, DAPS 221.4 mL, DFP-32 208.1 mL, DFP-28 209.8 mL, DFP-24 213.6 mL; Cycle 2 — HP 366.2 mL, DAPS 318.9 mL, DFP-32 314.9 mL, DFP-28 315.9 mL, DFP-24 322.0 mL. Discussion p.9-10 states: ‘In Cycle 1, the volume of fertilizer added to a DFP-32 plant tank was approximately 51.9% and 6.4% lower than in HP and DAPS, respectively. In Cycle 2, these differences between DFP-32 to HP and DAPS dropped to 16.3% and 1.3%, respectively.’ Recomputing directly from the Results p.6 raw values: Cycle 1 DFP-32 vs HP = (316.2-208.1)/316.2 = 34.2% (not 51.9%); Cycle 1 DFP-32 vs DAPS = (221.4-208.1)/221.4 = 6.0% (matches the stated 6.4%, within rounding); Cycle 2 DFP-32 vs HP = (366.2-314.9)/366.2 = 14.0% (not 16.3%); Cycle 2 DFP-32 vs DAPS = (318.9-314.9)/318.9 = 1.3% (matches exactly). Both DAPS-relative percentages check out; both HP-relative percentages do not, by a consistent and non-trivial margin (about 18 and 2 percentage points off respectively) — this looks like a real arithmetic/reporting error in the Discussion’s HP comparison rather than a rounding artifact, though which of the two HP-comparison numbers (51.9%, 16.3%) the authors actually meant to compute cannot be determined from the paper. Recorded the raw, twice-stated Results p.6 volumes (unaffected either way) under NO COLUMN below; the Discussion’s HP-relative percentage claims are not entered anywhere and should not be cited without checking this note. No trials.csv cell is affected, since no dedicated fertilizer-volume or FUE-percent column holds this figure (FUE AP/FUE HYD are left NR because the paper never expresses fertilizer input against yield as a ratio — only as absolute mL and, in the Discussion, as an internally inconsistent %). This is the same relationship (less fertilizer needed at higher aquaponic nutrient loading) also reported cleanly and consistently for DFP-24/DFP-28 elsewhere in Results/Discussion, so the qualitative finding (DFP-32 needs least fertilizer, DFP-24/28 need slightly more, HP needs most) is not in doubt — only the exact HP-relative percentage magnitude is. | WATER COMPARTMENT NOTE: WATER COMPARTMENT NOTE (applies to all 4 rows): this paper reports two separate water-quality panels — Table 2 for the aquaculture subsystem (fish tank + RFS + MBBR/filters) and Table 3 for the hydroponic subsystem (plant tanks, PTs) — with DIFFERENT parameters measured in each (Table 2 has DO/TAN/NO2/NO3/orthophosphate/alkalinity/settleable solids; Table 3 has only temperature/EC/pH). Per SCHEMA.md’s compartment rule (‘take the plant bed / hydroponic unit value… note which compartment was used’), Aq pH, EC and Water temperature cells use the PLANT-TANK (Table 3) values, Cycle 2. Dissolved Oxigen, TAN/NH4-N, NO2-N and NO3-N cells use the AQUACULTURE-SUBSYSTEM (Table 2, fish-tank/RFS/MBBR) values instead, because the plant-bed equivalents for these four parameters were never measured at all (Table 3 has no DO/N-species columns) — using the aquaculture-side value here is the paper’s only reported approximation of the aquaponic loop’s nutrient/oxygen status, not a preference override of the compartment rule. | NOT DERIVED, left NR: Total Feed (kg) (FCR and weight gain per fish are both given, but total feed consumed per tank/treatment in kg is never stated as a figure; back-calculating it from FCR x biomass gain would be derivation); Fish biomass created (kg) (population-level final/initial biomass totals are not stated — only per-fish final weight, per-fish weight gain, and survival % are given; computing tank-level biomass created from fish count x weight would be derivation); N and K composition of the feed (Table 1 gives only crude protein, ether extract, crude fiber, ash, nitrogen-free extract, calcium, phosphorus and gross energy — no separate %N or %K); raw fish-body proximate composition (CP0/CPf, dry matter % of fish tissue) — the Methods state these were measured (freeze-dried whole-body samples, Leco FP528 analyzer) specifically to calculate PER/PPV/ CPwg, but the raw body-composition percentages themselves are never tabulated, only the final efficiency indices in Table 4; Lat/Long (Jaboticabal, SP, Brazil institutional location is named but no coordinates are stated anywhere in the paper; not filled from outside knowledge per the prime directive). | NO COLUMN: Protein-use efficiency indices (Table 4, all mean+/-SD, letters = Tukey groups, n=3): PER (protein efficiency ratio = mean weight gain / mean crude protein intake) DFP-24 3.82+/-0.19a, DFP-28 3.30+/-0.36ab, DFP-32 2.98+/-0.25b, BFT-32 3.41+/-0.11ab, DAPS-32 2.93+/-0.41b (p=0.021; text p.9 restates DFP-24’s PER as ‘3.83’, a WARN-MINOR rounding mismatch against the table’s 3.82, no cell affected since PER has no dedicated column); PPV (protein productive value, %) DFP-24 55.82+/-2.93a, DFP-28 50.71+/-3.90ab, DFP-32 48.32+/-5.69ab, BFT-32 58.43+/-2.60a, DAPS-32 40.11+/-5.70b (p=0.004); CPwg (crude protein on weight gain, %) DFP-24 14.65+/-0.93ab, DFP-28 15.43+/-1.29ab, DFP-32 16.17+/-1.04ab, BFT-32 17.14+/-1.25a, DAPS-32 13.7+/-0.24b (p=0.017). BFT-32 (tilapia-only biofloc treatment, NO plant/lettuce pairing at all — explicitly ‘a tilapia culture in BFT without integration with lettuce production’, p.3) is not given its own trials.csv row because it has no aquaponic (fish+plant) pairing to anchor a row on, but its full fish-performance and aquaculture-water-quality data (identical Table 2/4 structure to the four AP rows) is given here for reference since it is the paper’s key ‘biofloc benefit not lost to integration’ benchmark: Final weight 34.76+/-1.06 g(a), Weight gain 33.37+/-1.10 g(a), SGR 5.61+/-0.05(a), Productivity 6.10+/-0.28 kg/m3(a), Total length 12.10+/-0.47 cm, Standard length 10.16+/-0.42 cm, FCR 0.89+/-0.03, Survival 98.39+/-0%; water quality (Table 2): Temp 27.75+/-0.18C, DO 6.61+/-0.08(ab), pH 7.07+/-0.02(c), EC 0.50+/-0.02(a), TDS 0.32+/-0.01(a), Settleable Solids 36.87+/-5.01 mL/L, Alkalinity 86.57+/-13.94, Ammonia-N 0.36+/-0.08, Nitrite 0.35+/-0.03, Nitrate 0.70+/-0.09, Orthophosphate 1.82+/-0.11 mg/L. Full Table 1 diet formulation for all 4 CP levels (ingredients in g/kg: fish meal 32.2/38.2/43.6/49.1, poultry by-product meal 48.6/57.3/65.5/73.7, feather meal 15.9/19.1/21.8/24.6, soybean meal 247.3/341.8/431.3/520.4, corn 142.8/118.5/93.1/67.0, wheat meal 142.8/118.5/93.1/67.0, rice meal 142.8/118.5/93.1/67.0, broken rice 142.8/118.5/93.1/67.0, soy oil 37.4/28.7/27.0/28.1, limestone 9.7/8.1/6.5/5.0, dicalcium phosphate 20.0/19.0/18.3/17.5, vitamin-mineral premix 5.0 (all), antifungal 3.0 (all), antioxidant BHT 0.5 (all), methionine 1.0/0.3/0/0, lysine 3.2/0/0/0, salt 5.0 (all), for 24/28/32/36% CP respectively; centesimal composition: ether extract 96.1/85.8/81.8/80.4, crude fiber 56.1/55.4/54.1/52.6, ash 58.1/63.3/67.9/72.3, nitrogen-free extract 50.0/45.7/43.5/38.7, calcium 13.4 (all), phosphorus 6.6 (all), gross energy 17.0/16.8/16.9/16.9 MJ/kg). DFP-36 TREATMENT DISCONTINUED (not a row, no data analyzed/presented per the paper’s own statement, p.4): stocked and run identically to the other DFP arms but ‘high fish mortality occurred in all replicates of DFP-36 … after the middle of the experiment. After two days of exceptionally high temperatures (approximately 40C inside the greenhouse), a combination of high nutrient load, high settleable solids (volume of biofloc by Imhoff cones, 100 mL/L) and high water temperature (31.9C) caused a sudden drop in dissolved oxygen (0.8 mg/L) in the water at the end of the fortieth day of the experiment and, subsequently, the death of more than 80% of the fish. Thus, this treatment was discontinued, and its results were not analyzed and presented.’ Retained here as context only; no DFP-36 numbers exist to record anywhere. Raw fertilizer volumes and the Discussion percentage-mismatch: see WARN-MATERIAL flag above. Marketable-plant percentage: 83% of Cycle-1 seedlings and 100% of Cycle-2 harvested lettuce were marketable across ALL treatments (p.7-8, not broken out per treatment, so not a per-row cell). Min-Max ranges for every Table 2/3 water-quality parameter (omitted here as SCHEMA.md specifies trial mean+/-SD only, not ranges, when a mean is available — which it is throughout this paper).

pinhoDecoupledFLOCponicsSystems2021-T2

Fish

Field	Value
Fish	Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), masculinized juveniles
Initial Stock density	0.43 (initial biomass at stocking, p.4; fish-count density separately stated as 300 fish/m3)
FCR	1.06 +/- 0.11
SGR	5.33 +/- 0.04
Protein	28.02
P	0.66 (6.6 g/kg, isophosphoric across all diets, Table 1)
% of body weight	12-5 (declining ration schedule with fish size, not a single nominal value; Raguife® guide, p.4)
Fish size initial	1.42 +/- 0.03
Fish size final	29.63 +/- 0.63
Feed routine	Hand-fed 4x/day at 08:30, 11:00, 14:30 and 18:00 h; ration 12% to 5% of body weight declining as fish grew (Raguife® commercial schedule); >=20% of fish per tank weighed weekly to adjust feed amount (p.4)
Feed regime	28% CP diet (Table 1): centesimal crude protein 280.2 g/kg (28.02%), ether extract 85.8 g/kg, crude fiber 55.4 g/kg, ash 63.3 g/kg, nitrogen-free extract 45.7 g/kg, Ca 13.4 g/kg, P 6.6 g/kg, gross energy 16.8 MJ/kg; isoenergetic/isophosphoric with the other 3 diets; animal-source protein fixed at 25% of total protein
Fish survival rate	95.15 +/- 0.57
Fish weight gain	28.20 +/- 0.67
Fish trial duration (days)	56

Water

Field	Value
Water recycle	NA (no continuous recirculation pump in biofloc-based subsystems, p.4)
Water volume in the system	380 (fish tank only, p.4; subsystem also has a 100 L RFS not summed here; plant side: 60 L per PT x 2 PTs)
Water type	Artesian well water (fill/make-up); NR categorised further
Daily Water exchange rate	2 (percent of initial plant-tank (PT) volume added daily as make-up water to replace evaporation, p.5; not a designed system-wide discharge/exchange rate)
Aq pH	6.55 +/- 0.10
pHOptimal	5.5-6.5 (target range for plant-tank (PT) pH; diluted phosphoric acid added when pH exceeded 6.5, p.5)
Dissolved Oxigen	6.44 +/- 0.32
EC	1.67 +/- 0.05
Water temperature	23.51 +/- 0.21
TAN / NH4-N	0.42 +/- 0.05
NO2-N	0.30 +/- 0.07
NO3-N	0.70 +/- 0.04

Plant

Field	Value
Plant	Lettuce (Lactuca sativa), butter type
Details	Cycle 2 (final production phase): hydroponic seedlings at 21 d.a.s. (2.04+/-0.57 g) transplanted, grown 21 d to harvest, 8 plants/PT (0.42 m2), 19 plants/m2. Cycle 1 (seedling phase, 14 d, 7->21 d.a.s., 0.59+/-0.08 g at transplant) run earlier in the same aquaculture subsystem; its full growth dataset is given in Experimental Remarks rather than the harvest-oriented cells below (see TRIAL DEFINITION).
Days Plant after transplant	21
Plants/m2	19
Plant height	27.87 +/- 1.73
Leaf count	29.21 +/- 1.78
Plant fresh weight	101.98 +/- 17.53 (wet LEAF weight only, Cycle 2; wet root weight 5.32 +/- 1.14 g reported separately, see remarks)
Plant dry matter	1.64 +/- 0.63 g (dry LEAF weight, not %; Cycle 2, Table 5)

System & Setup

Field	Value
System type	Decoupled FLOCponics (DFP), biofloc-based; DWC hydroponic subsystem; unidirectional flow from fish tank -> RFS/bag-filter -> plant tanks
Media Details	Deep-water culture (DWC) floating system; 36 individual plant tanks (PTs), 0.42 m2 surface / 60 L volume each, 8 plants/PT in an expanded polystyrene block sized to the PT area (p.4)
Biological system already in use	Y (25% of each aquaculture subsystem’s starting volume filled with water from 60-day mature RAS/BFT inoculums to pre-establish MBBR nitrifying biofilm (DAPS) or biofloc microbial community (BFT/DFP) before stocking (p.4))
Air supplement	Y (2 HP air blower per system, distributed via AquaDrop Air® micro-perforated diffusers in fish tank (16 cm-diameter diffuser ring) and, for DAPS, also in MBBR and PTs (15 cm diffuser length) (p.4))
Iron supplemented	Y (Commercial fertilizer (Dripsol Folhosas®) used for PT top-up in ALL treatments (incl. HP) contains 0.15% Fe as one of its stated micronutrients (p.5); not a treatment-specific Fe amendment)
Remineralization	Y (Commercial fertilizer solution added to PTs of every treatment (incl. AP) at system start-up to reach target EC, and topped up only in the first 2 days of each plant cycle if EC fell below target; volume calculated via VAfs=(ECs-ECPT)xVPT/ECcfs (p.5); this is a fertilizer top-up scheme, not a fish-sludge remineralization process)
pH Buffers	Y (Diluted (1:1) phosphoric acid added to PTs when pH exceeded 6.5; calcium hydroxide added to fish tanks when alkalinity fell below 80 mg/L (p.4-5))
Climate control	Y (Passive only (paper’s own words: ‘carried out under passively controlled climatic conditions’, p.10); movable 40%-shading net and movable plastic side panels, closed when inside greenhouse temperature <28C or at night)
Nutrient supplemented	Y (Commercial fertilizer Dripsol Folhosas® (22.5% N, 9% P, 30% K, 4% Mg, 18.5% Ca, 6% S, 0.15% Fe, 0.085% Zn, 0.05% Mn, 0.015% Cu, 0.004% Mo, 0.003% B) dosed into ALL plant tanks (HP and every AP treatment) to reach target EC (1.2 mS/cm Cycle 1, 1.7 mS/cm Cycle 2), p.5)
Equipment	Horiba U-52G multiparameter meter (DO/pH/EC/TDS/temperature); 500 W thermostat heaters (fish tanks); air blower (2 HP) with AquaDrop Air® micro-perforated diffusers; Leco FP528 Nitrogen/Protein analyzer; Edwards Pirani 501 freeze dryer; C.A.F. model 22S meat grinder (fish tissue prep)
Control Parameters	Fish-tank heater setpoint 27C; PT pH target 5.5-6.5; PT EC target 1.2 mS/cm (Cycle 1) / 1.7 mS/cm (Cycle 2); biofloc C:N ratio target 15:1 via molasses dosing 3x/week (BFT/DFP only); fish-tank alkalinity floor 80 mg/L (Ca(OH)2 added below this)
Combination	Nile tilapia (masculinized juveniles) and butter lettuce; decoupled FLOCponics at 28% dietary crude protein vs shared hydroponics control

Site

Field	Value
Region	South America
Country	Brazil
Average room Temperature	34.2 +/- 4.1 (greenhouse-inside air temperature mean, Fig. 3, 56-day period; distinct from PT/fish-tank water temperature)

Results & Statistics

Field	Value
Measured Unit	g (leaf/root height in cm; weights in g); g/plant (wet leaf weight -> Plant fresh weight cell); g/plant (dry leaf weight -> Plant dry matter cell, reported as dry weight not %); g fw/m2 (productivity -> AP/HYD cells)
Statistic Details	Shapiro-Wilk (normality) + Levene’s test (homogeneity of variance) checked first; one-way ANOVA on each parameter across all 5 plant treatments (DFP-24, DFP-28, DFP-32, DAPS-32, HP) simultaneously; Tukey’s test for significant differences; alpha=0.05 (p.5-6)
Statistically analysed	Y
Replicates (n)	3 (fish production & aquaculture-subsystem water quality, p.5); 6 (plant productivity & hydroponic-subsystem water quality, p.5)
AP	518.45 +/- 32.21
HYD	504.19 (HP Cycle-2 productivity, Table 5)

Experimental Remarks: TRIAL DEFINITION: this row = DFP-28 (decoupled FLOCponics, biofloc-based aquaculture subsystem, 28% crude-protein diet) vs the shared hydroponics (HP) control, recorded in the HYD-labelled cells. DFP = decoupled FLOCponics: biofloc-based aquaculture subsystem (circular fish tank + radial flow settler (RFS), NO moving-bed biofilter), water periodically decanted/filtered (68 um bag filter) before unidirectional transfer to plant tanks; decanted bioflocs returned to the fish tank except for sampling events. Paired control = HP (well-water-only hydroponic treatment, no fish, no aquaculture subsystem). Design: completely randomized experiment (paper’s own words, p.3), 3 independent replicate aquaculture subsystems per fish/AP treatment feeding 2 plant tanks (PTs) each = 6 PT replicates per plant treatment; HP itself run as 6 independent PTs on well water only. DFP-28 is the second of four dose-response CP levels tested within the DFP system type. Plant-growth cells (Plant height, Leaf count, Plant fresh weight, Plant dry matter, AP/HYD productivity) use Cycle 2 (‘final production phase’, 21 d harvest) as the single most harvest-comparable dataset, per SCHEMA.md’s water-quality-style ‘one summary value’ convention extended here to plant growth since the paper ran two genuinely separate plantings (new seedlings each time) rather than two harvests of one crop. Cycle 1 (‘seedling phase’, 14 d, transplant 7->21 d.a.s.) used the SAME aquaculture-subsystem replicates and is fully preserved below since it is real, non-redundant data, not because the SCHEMA requires two rows — SCHEMA.md’s explicit instruction (‘if unsure, keep one row… merging is reversible, un-multiplying is not’) was followed in preference to the alternative of doubling every trial (4 -> 8 rows) as was done for pantanellaAquaponicsHydroponicsProduction2012’s two independent crop cycles; unlike that paper, here the AQUACULTURE side (fish performance, Table 4; aquaculture-subsystem water quality, Table 2) was measured ONCE over the full continuous 56-day trial and is not split by plant cycle at all, so treating the two lettuce plantings as separate trials would require artificially duplicating every fish-side cell across two rows with no new fish information in the second. CYCLE 1 FULL DATA (Table 5, mean+/-SD, n=6 PTs, all ns p>0.05 across all 5 treatments): leaf height 10.29+/-0.47 cm, root height 20.61+/-1.58 cm, total wet weight 13.71+/-0.42 g, total dry weight 0.73+/-0.07 g, productivity 254.99+/-7.83 g/m2, leaves 9.15+/-0.41. HP Cycle 1 (shared control, same for all 4 rows): leaf height 10.55+/-0.52 cm, root height 20.71+/-2.18 cm, total wet weight 14.36+/-0.98 g, total dry weight 0.86+/-0.06 g, productivity 267.24+/-18.15 g/m2, leaves 8.98+/-0.60. | WARN-MATERIAL fertilizer-volume percentage-reduction claims for DFP-32 (Discussion, p.9-10) vs raw fertilizer-volume figures (Results, p.6). Results p.6 states raw total fertilizer volume added per plant tank per cycle: Cycle 1 — HP 316.2 mL, DAPS 221.4 mL, DFP-32 208.1 mL, DFP-28 209.8 mL, DFP-24 213.6 mL; Cycle 2 — HP 366.2 mL, DAPS 318.9 mL, DFP-32 314.9 mL, DFP-28 315.9 mL, DFP-24 322.0 mL. Discussion p.9-10 states: ‘In Cycle 1, the volume of fertilizer added to a DFP-32 plant tank was approximately 51.9% and 6.4% lower than in HP and DAPS, respectively. In Cycle 2, these differences between DFP-32 to HP and DAPS dropped to 16.3% and 1.3%, respectively.’ Recomputing directly from the Results p.6 raw values: Cycle 1 DFP-32 vs HP = (316.2-208.1)/316.2 = 34.2% (not 51.9%); Cycle 1 DFP-32 vs DAPS = (221.4-208.1)/221.4 = 6.0% (matches the stated 6.4%, within rounding); Cycle 2 DFP-32 vs HP = (366.2-314.9)/366.2 = 14.0% (not 16.3%); Cycle 2 DFP-32 vs DAPS = (318.9-314.9)/318.9 = 1.3% (matches exactly). Both DAPS-relative percentages check out; both HP-relative percentages do not, by a consistent and non-trivial margin (about 18 and 2 percentage points off respectively) — this looks like a real arithmetic/reporting error in the Discussion’s HP comparison rather than a rounding artifact, though which of the two HP-comparison numbers (51.9%, 16.3%) the authors actually meant to compute cannot be determined from the paper. Recorded the raw, twice-stated Results p.6 volumes (unaffected either way) under NO COLUMN below; the Discussion’s HP-relative percentage claims are not entered anywhere and should not be cited without checking this note. No trials.csv cell is affected, since no dedicated fertilizer-volume or FUE-percent column holds this figure (FUE AP/FUE HYD are left NR because the paper never expresses fertilizer input against yield as a ratio — only as absolute mL and, in the Discussion, as an internally inconsistent %). This is the same relationship (less fertilizer needed at higher aquaponic nutrient loading) also reported cleanly and consistently for DFP-24/DFP-28 elsewhere in Results/Discussion, so the qualitative finding (DFP-32 needs least fertilizer, DFP-24/28 need slightly more, HP needs most) is not in doubt — only the exact HP-relative percentage magnitude is. | WATER COMPARTMENT NOTE: WATER COMPARTMENT NOTE (applies to all 4 rows): this paper reports two separate water-quality panels — Table 2 for the aquaculture subsystem (fish tank + RFS + MBBR/filters) and Table 3 for the hydroponic subsystem (plant tanks, PTs) — with DIFFERENT parameters measured in each (Table 2 has DO/TAN/NO2/NO3/orthophosphate/alkalinity/settleable solids; Table 3 has only temperature/EC/pH). Per SCHEMA.md’s compartment rule (‘take the plant bed / hydroponic unit value… note which compartment was used’), Aq pH, EC and Water temperature cells use the PLANT-TANK (Table 3) values, Cycle 2. Dissolved Oxigen, TAN/NH4-N, NO2-N and NO3-N cells use the AQUACULTURE-SUBSYSTEM (Table 2, fish-tank/RFS/MBBR) values instead, because the plant-bed equivalents for these four parameters were never measured at all (Table 3 has no DO/N-species columns) — using the aquaculture-side value here is the paper’s only reported approximation of the aquaponic loop’s nutrient/oxygen status, not a preference override of the compartment rule. | NOT DERIVED, left NR: Total Feed (kg) (FCR and weight gain per fish are both given, but total feed consumed per tank/treatment in kg is never stated as a figure; back-calculating it from FCR x biomass gain would be derivation); Fish biomass created (kg) (population-level final/initial biomass totals are not stated — only per-fish final weight, per-fish weight gain, and survival % are given; computing tank-level biomass created from fish count x weight would be derivation); N and K composition of the feed (Table 1 gives only crude protein, ether extract, crude fiber, ash, nitrogen-free extract, calcium, phosphorus and gross energy — no separate %N or %K); raw fish-body proximate composition (CP0/CPf, dry matter % of fish tissue) — the Methods state these were measured (freeze-dried whole-body samples, Leco FP528 analyzer) specifically to calculate PER/PPV/ CPwg, but the raw body-composition percentages themselves are never tabulated, only the final efficiency indices in Table 4; Lat/Long (Jaboticabal, SP, Brazil institutional location is named but no coordinates are stated anywhere in the paper; not filled from outside knowledge per the prime directive). | NO COLUMN: Protein-use efficiency indices (Table 4, all mean+/-SD, letters = Tukey groups, n=3): PER (protein efficiency ratio = mean weight gain / mean crude protein intake) DFP-24 3.82+/-0.19a, DFP-28 3.30+/-0.36ab, DFP-32 2.98+/-0.25b, BFT-32 3.41+/-0.11ab, DAPS-32 2.93+/-0.41b (p=0.021; text p.9 restates DFP-24’s PER as ‘3.83’, a WARN-MINOR rounding mismatch against the table’s 3.82, no cell affected since PER has no dedicated column); PPV (protein productive value, %) DFP-24 55.82+/-2.93a, DFP-28 50.71+/-3.90ab, DFP-32 48.32+/-5.69ab, BFT-32 58.43+/-2.60a, DAPS-32 40.11+/-5.70b (p=0.004); CPwg (crude protein on weight gain, %) DFP-24 14.65+/-0.93ab, DFP-28 15.43+/-1.29ab, DFP-32 16.17+/-1.04ab, BFT-32 17.14+/-1.25a, DAPS-32 13.7+/-0.24b (p=0.017). BFT-32 (tilapia-only biofloc treatment, NO plant/lettuce pairing at all — explicitly ‘a tilapia culture in BFT without integration with lettuce production’, p.3) is not given its own trials.csv row because it has no aquaponic (fish+plant) pairing to anchor a row on, but its full fish-performance and aquaculture-water-quality data (identical Table 2/4 structure to the four AP rows) is given here for reference since it is the paper’s key ‘biofloc benefit not lost to integration’ benchmark: Final weight 34.76+/-1.06 g(a), Weight gain 33.37+/-1.10 g(a), SGR 5.61+/-0.05(a), Productivity 6.10+/-0.28 kg/m3(a), Total length 12.10+/-0.47 cm, Standard length 10.16+/-0.42 cm, FCR 0.89+/-0.03, Survival 98.39+/-0%; water quality (Table 2): Temp 27.75+/-0.18C, DO 6.61+/-0.08(ab), pH 7.07+/-0.02(c), EC 0.50+/-0.02(a), TDS 0.32+/-0.01(a), Settleable Solids 36.87+/-5.01 mL/L, Alkalinity 86.57+/-13.94, Ammonia-N 0.36+/-0.08, Nitrite 0.35+/-0.03, Nitrate 0.70+/-0.09, Orthophosphate 1.82+/-0.11 mg/L. Full Table 1 diet formulation for all 4 CP levels (ingredients in g/kg: fish meal 32.2/38.2/43.6/49.1, poultry by-product meal 48.6/57.3/65.5/73.7, feather meal 15.9/19.1/21.8/24.6, soybean meal 247.3/341.8/431.3/520.4, corn 142.8/118.5/93.1/67.0, wheat meal 142.8/118.5/93.1/67.0, rice meal 142.8/118.5/93.1/67.0, broken rice 142.8/118.5/93.1/67.0, soy oil 37.4/28.7/27.0/28.1, limestone 9.7/8.1/6.5/5.0, dicalcium phosphate 20.0/19.0/18.3/17.5, vitamin-mineral premix 5.0 (all), antifungal 3.0 (all), antioxidant BHT 0.5 (all), methionine 1.0/0.3/0/0, lysine 3.2/0/0/0, salt 5.0 (all), for 24/28/32/36% CP respectively; centesimal composition: ether extract 96.1/85.8/81.8/80.4, crude fiber 56.1/55.4/54.1/52.6, ash 58.1/63.3/67.9/72.3, nitrogen-free extract 50.0/45.7/43.5/38.7, calcium 13.4 (all), phosphorus 6.6 (all), gross energy 17.0/16.8/16.9/16.9 MJ/kg). DFP-36 TREATMENT DISCONTINUED (not a row, no data analyzed/presented per the paper’s own statement, p.4): stocked and run identically to the other DFP arms but ‘high fish mortality occurred in all replicates of DFP-36 … after the middle of the experiment. After two days of exceptionally high temperatures (approximately 40C inside the greenhouse), a combination of high nutrient load, high settleable solids (volume of biofloc by Imhoff cones, 100 mL/L) and high water temperature (31.9C) caused a sudden drop in dissolved oxygen (0.8 mg/L) in the water at the end of the fortieth day of the experiment and, subsequently, the death of more than 80% of the fish. Thus, this treatment was discontinued, and its results were not analyzed and presented.’ Retained here as context only; no DFP-36 numbers exist to record anywhere. Raw fertilizer volumes and the Discussion percentage-mismatch: see WARN-MATERIAL flag above. Marketable-plant percentage: 83% of Cycle-1 seedlings and 100% of Cycle-2 harvested lettuce were marketable across ALL treatments (p.7-8, not broken out per treatment, so not a per-row cell). Min-Max ranges for every Table 2/3 water-quality parameter (omitted here as SCHEMA.md specifies trial mean+/-SD only, not ranges, when a mean is available — which it is throughout this paper).

pinhoDecoupledFLOCponicsSystems2021-T3

Fish

Field	Value
Fish	Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), masculinized juveniles
Initial Stock density	0.43 (initial biomass at stocking, p.4; fish-count density separately stated as 300 fish/m3)
FCR	1.02 +/- 0.08
SGR	5.60 +/- 0.08
Protein	32.01
P	0.66 (6.6 g/kg, isophosphoric across all diets, Table 1)
% of body weight	12-5 (declining ration schedule with fish size, not a single nominal value; Raguife® guide, p.4)
Fish size initial	1.42 +/- 0.03
Fish size final	34.61 +/- 1.66
Feed routine	Hand-fed 4x/day at 08:30, 11:00, 14:30 and 18:00 h; ration 12% to 5% of body weight declining as fish grew (Raguife® commercial schedule); >=20% of fish per tank weighed weekly to adjust feed amount (p.4)
Feed regime	32% CP diet (Table 1): centesimal crude protein 320.1 g/kg (32.01%), ether extract 81.8 g/kg, crude fiber 54.1 g/kg, ash 67.9 g/kg, nitrogen-free extract 43.5 g/kg, Ca 13.4 g/kg, P 6.6 g/kg, gross energy 16.9 MJ/kg; isoenergetic/isophosphoric with the other 3 diets; same 32% CP diet also fed to BFT-32 and DAPS-32 (T4)
Fish survival rate	90.31 +/- 13.41
Fish weight gain	33.19 +/- 1.60
Fish trial duration (days)	56

Water

Field	Value
Water recycle	NA (no continuous recirculation pump in biofloc-based subsystems, p.4)
Water volume in the system	380 (fish tank only, p.4; subsystem also has a 100 L RFS not summed here; plant side: 60 L per PT x 2 PTs)
Water type	Artesian well water (fill/make-up); NR categorised further
Daily Water exchange rate	2 (percent of initial plant-tank (PT) volume added daily as make-up water to replace evaporation, p.5; not a designed system-wide discharge/exchange rate)
Aq pH	6.66 +/- 0.13
pHOptimal	5.5-6.5 (target range for plant-tank (PT) pH; diluted phosphoric acid added when pH exceeded 6.5, p.5)
Dissolved Oxigen	6.19 +/- 0.21
EC	1.67 +/- 0.07
Water temperature	23.47 +/- 0.22
TAN / NH4-N	0.30 +/- 0.03
NO2-N	0.40 +/- 0.04
NO3-N	0.72 +/- 0.09

Plant

Field	Value
Plant	Lettuce (Lactuca sativa), butter type
Details	Cycle 2 (final production phase): hydroponic seedlings at 21 d.a.s. (2.04+/-0.57 g) transplanted, grown 21 d to harvest, 8 plants/PT (0.42 m2), 19 plants/m2. Cycle 1 (seedling phase, 14 d, 7->21 d.a.s., 0.59+/-0.08 g at transplant) run earlier in the same aquaculture subsystem; its full growth dataset is given in Experimental Remarks rather than the harvest-oriented cells below (see TRIAL DEFINITION).
Days Plant after transplant	21
Plants/m2	19
Plant height	28.59 +/- 0.60
Leaf count	29.98 +/- 1.12
Plant fresh weight	112.60 +/- 4.41 (wet LEAF weight only, Cycle 2; wet root weight 6.14 +/- 1.04 g reported separately, see remarks)
Plant dry matter	1.48 +/- 0.39 g (dry LEAF weight, not %; Cycle 2, Table 5)

System & Setup

Field	Value
System type	Decoupled FLOCponics (DFP), biofloc-based; DWC hydroponic subsystem; unidirectional flow from fish tank -> RFS/bag-filter -> plant tanks
Media Details	Deep-water culture (DWC) floating system; 36 individual plant tanks (PTs), 0.42 m2 surface / 60 L volume each, 8 plants/PT in an expanded polystyrene block sized to the PT area (p.4)
Biological system already in use	Y (25% of each aquaculture subsystem’s starting volume filled with water from 60-day mature RAS/BFT inoculums to pre-establish MBBR nitrifying biofilm (DAPS) or biofloc microbial community (BFT/DFP) before stocking (p.4))
Air supplement	Y (2 HP air blower per system, distributed via AquaDrop Air® micro-perforated diffusers in fish tank (16 cm-diameter diffuser ring) and, for DAPS, also in MBBR and PTs (15 cm diffuser length) (p.4))
Iron supplemented	Y (Commercial fertilizer (Dripsol Folhosas®) used for PT top-up in ALL treatments (incl. HP) contains 0.15% Fe as one of its stated micronutrients (p.5); not a treatment-specific Fe amendment)
Remineralization	Y (Commercial fertilizer solution added to PTs of every treatment (incl. AP) at system start-up to reach target EC, and topped up only in the first 2 days of each plant cycle if EC fell below target; volume calculated via VAfs=(ECs-ECPT)xVPT/ECcfs (p.5); this is a fertilizer top-up scheme, not a fish-sludge remineralization process)
pH Buffers	Y (Diluted (1:1) phosphoric acid added to PTs when pH exceeded 6.5; calcium hydroxide added to fish tanks when alkalinity fell below 80 mg/L (p.4-5))
Climate control	Y (Passive only (paper’s own words: ‘carried out under passively controlled climatic conditions’, p.10); movable 40%-shading net and movable plastic side panels, closed when inside greenhouse temperature <28C or at night)
Nutrient supplemented	Y (Commercial fertilizer Dripsol Folhosas® (22.5% N, 9% P, 30% K, 4% Mg, 18.5% Ca, 6% S, 0.15% Fe, 0.085% Zn, 0.05% Mn, 0.015% Cu, 0.004% Mo, 0.003% B) dosed into ALL plant tanks (HP and every AP treatment) to reach target EC (1.2 mS/cm Cycle 1, 1.7 mS/cm Cycle 2), p.5)
Equipment	Horiba U-52G multiparameter meter (DO/pH/EC/TDS/temperature); 500 W thermostat heaters (fish tanks); air blower (2 HP) with AquaDrop Air® micro-perforated diffusers; Leco FP528 Nitrogen/Protein analyzer; Edwards Pirani 501 freeze dryer; C.A.F. model 22S meat grinder (fish tissue prep)
Control Parameters	Fish-tank heater setpoint 27C; PT pH target 5.5-6.5; PT EC target 1.2 mS/cm (Cycle 1) / 1.7 mS/cm (Cycle 2); biofloc C:N ratio target 15:1 via molasses dosing 3x/week (BFT/DFP only); fish-tank alkalinity floor 80 mg/L (Ca(OH)2 added below this)
Combination	Nile tilapia (masculinized juveniles) and butter lettuce; decoupled FLOCponics at 32% dietary crude protein vs shared hydroponics control

Site

Field	Value
Region	South America
Country	Brazil
Average room Temperature	34.2 +/- 4.1 (greenhouse-inside air temperature mean, Fig. 3, 56-day period; distinct from PT/fish-tank water temperature)

Results & Statistics

Field	Value
Measured Unit	g (leaf/root height in cm; weights in g); g/plant (wet leaf weight -> Plant fresh weight cell); g/plant (dry leaf weight -> Plant dry matter cell, reported as dry weight not %); g fw/m2 (productivity -> AP/HYD cells)
Statistic Details	Shapiro-Wilk (normality) + Levene’s test (homogeneity of variance) checked first; one-way ANOVA on each parameter across all 5 plant treatments (DFP-24, DFP-28, DFP-32, DAPS-32, HP) simultaneously; Tukey’s test for significant differences; alpha=0.05 (p.5-6)
Statistically analysed	Y
Replicates (n)	3 (fish production & aquaculture-subsystem water quality, p.5); 6 (plant productivity & hydroponic-subsystem water quality, p.5)
AP	531.89 +/- 11.19
HYD	504.19 (HP Cycle-2 productivity, Table 5)

Experimental Remarks: TRIAL DEFINITION: this row = DFP-32 (decoupled FLOCponics, biofloc-based aquaculture subsystem, 32% crude-protein diet) vs the shared hydroponics (HP) control, recorded in the HYD-labelled cells. DFP = decoupled FLOCponics: biofloc-based aquaculture subsystem (circular fish tank + radial flow settler (RFS), NO moving-bed biofilter), water periodically decanted/filtered (68 um bag filter) before unidirectional transfer to plant tanks; decanted bioflocs returned to the fish tank except for sampling events. Paired control = HP (well-water-only hydroponic treatment, no fish, no aquaculture subsystem). Design: completely randomized experiment (paper’s own words, p.3), 3 independent replicate aquaculture subsystems per fish/AP treatment feeding 2 plant tanks (PTs) each = 6 PT replicates per plant treatment; HP itself run as 6 independent PTs on well water only. DFP-32 is the third of four dose-response CP levels tested within the DFP system type, and shares its 32% CP diet with the BFT-32 (fish-only, no plant pairing, not its own row — see NO COLUMN below) and DAPS-32 (T4) treatments, isolating the aquaculture-technology effect (biofloc vs RAS) at matched dietary protein. Plant-growth cells (Plant height, Leaf count, Plant fresh weight, Plant dry matter, AP/HYD productivity) use Cycle 2 (‘final production phase’, 21 d harvest) as the single most harvest-comparable dataset, per SCHEMA.md’s water-quality-style ‘one summary value’ convention extended here to plant growth since the paper ran two genuinely separate plantings (new seedlings each time) rather than two harvests of one crop. Cycle 1 (‘seedling phase’, 14 d, transplant 7->21 d.a.s.) used the SAME aquaculture-subsystem replicates and is fully preserved below since it is real, non-redundant data, not because the SCHEMA requires two rows — SCHEMA.md’s explicit instruction (‘if unsure, keep one row… merging is reversible, un-multiplying is not’) was followed in preference to the alternative of doubling every trial (4 -> 8 rows) as was done for pantanellaAquaponicsHydroponicsProduction2012’s two independent crop cycles; unlike that paper, here the AQUACULTURE side (fish performance, Table 4; aquaculture-subsystem water quality, Table 2) was measured ONCE over the full continuous 56-day trial and is not split by plant cycle at all, so treating the two lettuce plantings as separate trials would require artificially duplicating every fish-side cell across two rows with no new fish information in the second. CYCLE 1 FULL DATA (Table 5, mean+/-SD, n=6 PTs, all ns p>0.05 across all 5 treatments): leaf height 9.80+/-0.91 cm, root height 18.77+/-1.93 cm, total wet weight 13.86+/-0.83 g, total dry weight 0.78+/-0.10 g, productivity 257.95+/-15.47 g/m2, leaves 9.00+/-0.56. HP Cycle 1 (shared control, same for all 4 rows): leaf height 10.55+/-0.52 cm, root height 20.71+/-2.18 cm, total wet weight 14.36+/-0.98 g, total dry weight 0.86+/-0.06 g, productivity 267.24+/-18.15 g/m2, leaves 8.98+/-0.60. | WARN-MATERIAL fertilizer-volume percentage-reduction claims for DFP-32 (Discussion, p.9-10) vs raw fertilizer-volume figures (Results, p.6). Results p.6 states raw total fertilizer volume added per plant tank per cycle: Cycle 1 — HP 316.2 mL, DAPS 221.4 mL, DFP-32 208.1 mL, DFP-28 209.8 mL, DFP-24 213.6 mL; Cycle 2 — HP 366.2 mL, DAPS 318.9 mL, DFP-32 314.9 mL, DFP-28 315.9 mL, DFP-24 322.0 mL. Discussion p.9-10 states: ‘In Cycle 1, the volume of fertilizer added to a DFP-32 plant tank was approximately 51.9% and 6.4% lower than in HP and DAPS, respectively. In Cycle 2, these differences between DFP-32 to HP and DAPS dropped to 16.3% and 1.3%, respectively.’ Recomputing directly from the Results p.6 raw values: Cycle 1 DFP-32 vs HP = (316.2-208.1)/316.2 = 34.2% (not 51.9%); Cycle 1 DFP-32 vs DAPS = (221.4-208.1)/221.4 = 6.0% (matches the stated 6.4%, within rounding); Cycle 2 DFP-32 vs HP = (366.2-314.9)/366.2 = 14.0% (not 16.3%); Cycle 2 DFP-32 vs DAPS = (318.9-314.9)/318.9 = 1.3% (matches exactly). Both DAPS-relative percentages check out; both HP-relative percentages do not, by a consistent and non-trivial margin (about 18 and 2 percentage points off respectively) — this looks like a real arithmetic/reporting error in the Discussion’s HP comparison rather than a rounding artifact, though which of the two HP-comparison numbers (51.9%, 16.3%) the authors actually meant to compute cannot be determined from the paper. Recorded the raw, twice-stated Results p.6 volumes (unaffected either way) under NO COLUMN below; the Discussion’s HP-relative percentage claims are not entered anywhere and should not be cited without checking this note. No trials.csv cell is affected, since no dedicated fertilizer-volume or FUE-percent column holds this figure (FUE AP/FUE HYD are left NR because the paper never expresses fertilizer input against yield as a ratio — only as absolute mL and, in the Discussion, as an internally inconsistent %). This is the same relationship (less fertilizer needed at higher aquaponic nutrient loading) also reported cleanly and consistently for DFP-24/DFP-28 elsewhere in Results/Discussion, so the qualitative finding (DFP-32 needs least fertilizer, DFP-24/28 need slightly more, HP needs most) is not in doubt — only the exact HP-relative percentage magnitude is. | WATER COMPARTMENT NOTE: WATER COMPARTMENT NOTE (applies to all 4 rows): this paper reports two separate water-quality panels — Table 2 for the aquaculture subsystem (fish tank + RFS + MBBR/filters) and Table 3 for the hydroponic subsystem (plant tanks, PTs) — with DIFFERENT parameters measured in each (Table 2 has DO/TAN/NO2/NO3/orthophosphate/alkalinity/settleable solids; Table 3 has only temperature/EC/pH). Per SCHEMA.md’s compartment rule (‘take the plant bed / hydroponic unit value… note which compartment was used’), Aq pH, EC and Water temperature cells use the PLANT-TANK (Table 3) values, Cycle 2. Dissolved Oxigen, TAN/NH4-N, NO2-N and NO3-N cells use the AQUACULTURE-SUBSYSTEM (Table 2, fish-tank/RFS/MBBR) values instead, because the plant-bed equivalents for these four parameters were never measured at all (Table 3 has no DO/N-species columns) — using the aquaculture-side value here is the paper’s only reported approximation of the aquaponic loop’s nutrient/oxygen status, not a preference override of the compartment rule. | NOT DERIVED, left NR: Total Feed (kg) (FCR and weight gain per fish are both given, but total feed consumed per tank/treatment in kg is never stated as a figure; back-calculating it from FCR x biomass gain would be derivation); Fish biomass created (kg) (population-level final/initial biomass totals are not stated — only per-fish final weight, per-fish weight gain, and survival % are given; computing tank-level biomass created from fish count x weight would be derivation); N and K composition of the feed (Table 1 gives only crude protein, ether extract, crude fiber, ash, nitrogen-free extract, calcium, phosphorus and gross energy — no separate %N or %K); raw fish-body proximate composition (CP0/CPf, dry matter % of fish tissue) — the Methods state these were measured (freeze-dried whole-body samples, Leco FP528 analyzer) specifically to calculate PER/PPV/ CPwg, but the raw body-composition percentages themselves are never tabulated, only the final efficiency indices in Table 4; Lat/Long (Jaboticabal, SP, Brazil institutional location is named but no coordinates are stated anywhere in the paper; not filled from outside knowledge per the prime directive). | NO COLUMN: Protein-use efficiency indices (Table 4, all mean+/-SD, letters = Tukey groups, n=3): PER (protein efficiency ratio = mean weight gain / mean crude protein intake) DFP-24 3.82+/-0.19a, DFP-28 3.30+/-0.36ab, DFP-32 2.98+/-0.25b, BFT-32 3.41+/-0.11ab, DAPS-32 2.93+/-0.41b (p=0.021; text p.9 restates DFP-24’s PER as ‘3.83’, a WARN-MINOR rounding mismatch against the table’s 3.82, no cell affected since PER has no dedicated column); PPV (protein productive value, %) DFP-24 55.82+/-2.93a, DFP-28 50.71+/-3.90ab, DFP-32 48.32+/-5.69ab, BFT-32 58.43+/-2.60a, DAPS-32 40.11+/-5.70b (p=0.004); CPwg (crude protein on weight gain, %) DFP-24 14.65+/-0.93ab, DFP-28 15.43+/-1.29ab, DFP-32 16.17+/-1.04ab, BFT-32 17.14+/-1.25a, DAPS-32 13.7+/-0.24b (p=0.017). BFT-32 (tilapia-only biofloc treatment, NO plant/lettuce pairing at all — explicitly ‘a tilapia culture in BFT without integration with lettuce production’, p.3) is not given its own trials.csv row because it has no aquaponic (fish+plant) pairing to anchor a row on, but its full fish-performance and aquaculture-water-quality data (identical Table 2/4 structure to the four AP rows) is given here for reference since it is the paper’s key ‘biofloc benefit not lost to integration’ benchmark: Final weight 34.76+/-1.06 g(a), Weight gain 33.37+/-1.10 g(a), SGR 5.61+/-0.05(a), Productivity 6.10+/-0.28 kg/m3(a), Total length 12.10+/-0.47 cm, Standard length 10.16+/-0.42 cm, FCR 0.89+/-0.03, Survival 98.39+/-0%; water quality (Table 2): Temp 27.75+/-0.18C, DO 6.61+/-0.08(ab), pH 7.07+/-0.02(c), EC 0.50+/-0.02(a), TDS 0.32+/-0.01(a), Settleable Solids 36.87+/-5.01 mL/L, Alkalinity 86.57+/-13.94, Ammonia-N 0.36+/-0.08, Nitrite 0.35+/-0.03, Nitrate 0.70+/-0.09, Orthophosphate 1.82+/-0.11 mg/L. Full Table 1 diet formulation for all 4 CP levels (ingredients in g/kg: fish meal 32.2/38.2/43.6/49.1, poultry by-product meal 48.6/57.3/65.5/73.7, feather meal 15.9/19.1/21.8/24.6, soybean meal 247.3/341.8/431.3/520.4, corn 142.8/118.5/93.1/67.0, wheat meal 142.8/118.5/93.1/67.0, rice meal 142.8/118.5/93.1/67.0, broken rice 142.8/118.5/93.1/67.0, soy oil 37.4/28.7/27.0/28.1, limestone 9.7/8.1/6.5/5.0, dicalcium phosphate 20.0/19.0/18.3/17.5, vitamin-mineral premix 5.0 (all), antifungal 3.0 (all), antioxidant BHT 0.5 (all), methionine 1.0/0.3/0/0, lysine 3.2/0/0/0, salt 5.0 (all), for 24/28/32/36% CP respectively; centesimal composition: ether extract 96.1/85.8/81.8/80.4, crude fiber 56.1/55.4/54.1/52.6, ash 58.1/63.3/67.9/72.3, nitrogen-free extract 50.0/45.7/43.5/38.7, calcium 13.4 (all), phosphorus 6.6 (all), gross energy 17.0/16.8/16.9/16.9 MJ/kg). DFP-36 TREATMENT DISCONTINUED (not a row, no data analyzed/presented per the paper’s own statement, p.4): stocked and run identically to the other DFP arms but ‘high fish mortality occurred in all replicates of DFP-36 … after the middle of the experiment. After two days of exceptionally high temperatures (approximately 40C inside the greenhouse), a combination of high nutrient load, high settleable solids (volume of biofloc by Imhoff cones, 100 mL/L) and high water temperature (31.9C) caused a sudden drop in dissolved oxygen (0.8 mg/L) in the water at the end of the fortieth day of the experiment and, subsequently, the death of more than 80% of the fish. Thus, this treatment was discontinued, and its results were not analyzed and presented.’ Retained here as context only; no DFP-36 numbers exist to record anywhere. Raw fertilizer volumes and the Discussion percentage-mismatch: see WARN-MATERIAL flag above. Marketable-plant percentage: 83% of Cycle-1 seedlings and 100% of Cycle-2 harvested lettuce were marketable across ALL treatments (p.7-8, not broken out per treatment, so not a per-row cell). Min-Max ranges for every Table 2/3 water-quality parameter (omitted here as SCHEMA.md specifies trial mean+/-SD only, not ranges, when a mean is available — which it is throughout this paper).

pinhoDecoupledFLOCponicsSystems2021-T4

Fish

Field	Value
Fish	Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), masculinized juveniles
Initial Stock density	0.43 (initial biomass at stocking, p.4; fish-count density separately stated as 300 fish/m3)
FCR	1.05 +/- 0.14
SGR	5.25 +/- 0.03
Protein	32.01
P	0.66 (6.6 g/kg, isophosphoric across all diets, Table 1)
% of body weight	12-5 (declining ration schedule with fish size, not a single nominal value; Raguife® guide, p.4)
Fish size initial	1.42 +/- 0.03
Fish size final	28.26 +/- 0.50
Feed routine	Hand-fed 4x/day at 08:30, 11:00, 14:30 and 18:00 h; ration 12% to 5% of body weight declining as fish grew (Raguife® commercial schedule); >=20% of fish per tank weighed weekly to adjust feed amount (p.4)
Feed regime	32% CP diet (Table 1): centesimal crude protein 320.1 g/kg (32.01%), ether extract 81.8 g/kg, crude fiber 54.1 g/kg, ash 67.9 g/kg, nitrogen-free extract 43.5 g/kg, Ca 13.4 g/kg, P 6.6 g/kg, gross energy 16.9 MJ/kg; same 32% CP diet also fed to DFP-32 (T3) and BFT-32
Fish survival rate	95.40 +/- 1.65
Fish weight gain	26.84 +/- 0.57
Fish trial duration (days)	56

Water

Field	Value
Water recycle	1000 L/min (pump submerged in MBBR, continuous recirculation within the RAS aquaculture subsystem, p.4; distinct from the once-daily unidirectional fish->plant transfer rate, which is not given as a flow rate)
Water volume in the system	380 (fish tank only, p.4; subsystem also includes 100 L RFS + 5 L bag filter + 180 L MBBR, not summed here to avoid derivation; plant side: 60 L per PT x 2 PTs)
Water type	Artesian well water (fill/make-up); NR categorised further
Daily Water exchange rate	2 (percent of initial plant-tank (PT) volume added daily as make-up water to replace evaporation, p.5; not a designed system-wide discharge/exchange rate)
Aq pH	6.51 +/- 0.05
pHOptimal	5.5-6.5 (target range for plant-tank (PT) pH; diluted phosphoric acid added when pH exceeded 6.5, p.5)
Dissolved Oxigen	6.87 +/- 0.32
EC	1.70 +/- 0.03
Water temperature	23.49 +/- 0.19
TAN / NH4-N	0.30 +/- 0.10
NO2-N	0.16 +/- 0.05
NO3-N	0.63 +/- 0.04

Plant

Field	Value
Plant	Lettuce (Lactuca sativa), butter type
Details	Cycle 2 (final production phase): hydroponic seedlings at 21 d.a.s. (2.04+/-0.57 g) transplanted, grown 21 d to harvest, 8 plants/PT (0.42 m2), 19 plants/m2. Cycle 1 (seedling phase, 14 d, 7->21 d.a.s., 0.59+/-0.08 g at transplant) run earlier in the same aquaculture subsystem; its full growth dataset is given in Experimental Remarks rather than the harvest-oriented cells below (see TRIAL DEFINITION).
Days Plant after transplant	21
Plants/m2	19
Plant height	27.89 +/- 0.60
Leaf count	29.07 +/- 1.47
Plant fresh weight	99.21 +/- 13.46 (wet LEAF weight only, Cycle 2; wet root weight 5.53 +/- 0.82 g reported separately, see remarks)
Plant dry matter	1.30 +/- 0.26 g (dry LEAF weight, not %; Cycle 2, Table 5)

System & Setup

Field	Value
System type	Decoupled aquaponics (DAPS), RAS-based; DWC hydroponic subsystem; unidirectional flow from fish tank -> RFS -> MBBR (continuously recirculated) -> plant tanks
Media Details	Deep-water culture (DWC) floating system; 36 individual plant tanks (PTs), 0.42 m2 surface / 60 L volume each, 8 plants/PT in an expanded polystyrene block sized to the PT area (p.4)
Biological system already in use	Y (25% of each aquaculture subsystem’s starting volume filled with water from 60-day mature RAS/BFT inoculums to pre-establish MBBR nitrifying biofilm (DAPS) or biofloc microbial community (BFT/DFP) before stocking (p.4))
Air supplement	Y (2 HP air blower per system, distributed via AquaDrop Air® micro-perforated diffusers in fish tank (16 cm-diameter diffuser ring) and, for DAPS, also in MBBR and PTs (15 cm diffuser length) (p.4))
Iron supplemented	Y (Commercial fertilizer (Dripsol Folhosas®) used for PT top-up in ALL treatments (incl. HP) contains 0.15% Fe as one of its stated micronutrients (p.5); not a treatment-specific Fe amendment)
Remineralization	Y (Commercial fertilizer solution added to PTs of every treatment (incl. AP) at system start-up to reach target EC, and topped up only in the first 2 days of each plant cycle if EC fell below target; volume calculated via VAfs=(ECs-ECPT)xVPT/ECcfs (p.5); this is a fertilizer top-up scheme, not a fish-sludge remineralization process)
pH Buffers	Y (Diluted (1:1) phosphoric acid added to PTs when pH exceeded 6.5; calcium hydroxide added to fish tanks when alkalinity fell below 80 mg/L (p.4-5))
Climate control	Y (Passive only (paper’s own words: ‘carried out under passively controlled climatic conditions’, p.10); movable 40%-shading net and movable plastic side panels, closed when inside greenhouse temperature <28C or at night)
Nutrient supplemented	Y (Commercial fertilizer Dripsol Folhosas® (22.5% N, 9% P, 30% K, 4% Mg, 18.5% Ca, 6% S, 0.15% Fe, 0.085% Zn, 0.05% Mn, 0.015% Cu, 0.004% Mo, 0.003% B) dosed into ALL plant tanks (HP and every AP treatment) to reach target EC (1.2 mS/cm Cycle 1, 1.7 mS/cm Cycle 2), p.5)
Equipment	Horiba U-52G multiparameter meter (DO/pH/EC/TDS/temperature); 500 W thermostat heaters (fish tanks); air blower (2 HP) with AquaDrop Air® micro-perforated diffusers; Leco FP528 Nitrogen/Protein analyzer; Edwards Pirani 501 freeze dryer; C.A.F. model 22S meat grinder (fish tissue prep)
Control Parameters	Fish-tank heater setpoint 27C; PT pH target 5.5-6.5; PT EC target 1.2 mS/cm (Cycle 1) / 1.7 mS/cm (Cycle 2); biofloc C:N ratio target 15:1 via molasses dosing 3x/week (BFT/DFP only); fish-tank alkalinity floor 80 mg/L (Ca(OH)2 added below this)
Combination	Nile tilapia (masculinized juveniles) and butter lettuce; traditional decoupled aquaponics (RAS-based) at 32% dietary crude protein vs shared hydroponics control

Site

Field	Value
Region	South America
Country	Brazil
Average room Temperature	34.2 +/- 4.1 (greenhouse-inside air temperature mean, Fig. 3, 56-day period; distinct from PT/fish-tank water temperature)

Results & Statistics

Field	Value
Measured Unit	g (leaf/root height in cm; weights in g); g/plant (wet leaf weight -> Plant fresh weight cell); g/plant (dry leaf weight -> Plant dry matter cell, reported as dry weight not %); g fw/m2 (productivity -> AP/HYD cells)
Statistic Details	Shapiro-Wilk (normality) + Levene’s test (homogeneity of variance) checked first; one-way ANOVA on each parameter across all 5 plant treatments (DFP-24, DFP-28, DFP-32, DAPS-32, HP) simultaneously; Tukey’s test for significant differences; alpha=0.05 (p.5-6)
Statistically analysed	Y
Replicates (n)	3 (fish production & aquaculture-subsystem water quality, p.5); 6 (plant productivity & hydroponic-subsystem water quality, p.5)
AP	518.95 +/- 11.13
HYD	504.19 (HP Cycle-2 productivity, Table 5)

Experimental Remarks: TRIAL DEFINITION: this row = DAPS-32 (traditional decoupled aquaponics, RAS-based aquaculture subsystem, 32% crude-protein diet) vs the shared hydroponics (HP) control, recorded in the HYD-labelled cells. DAPS = traditional decoupled aquaponics: RAS-based aquaculture subsystem (circular fish tank + radial flow settler (RFS) + 68 um bag filter + moving-bed bioreactor (MBBR) with ~1000 m2/m3 specific-surface-area bio balls, continuously recirculated via a 1000 L/min pump submerged in the MBBR); sedimented sludge from the RFS removed weekly; water then directed unidirectionally to plant tanks (unlike DFP, DAPS water is NOT periodically decanted for bioflocs since none accumulate in a RAS). Paired control = HP (well-water-only hydroponic treatment, no fish, no aquaculture subsystem). Design: completely randomized experiment (paper’s own words, p.3), 3 independent replicate aquaculture subsystems per fish/AP treatment feeding 2 plant tanks (PTs) each = 6 PT replicates per plant treatment; HP itself run as 6 independent PTs on well water only. DAPS-32 is the paper’s traditional-aquaponics comparator: same 32% CP diet as DFP-32 (T3) and BFT-32 (not a row), differing only in aquaculture technology (RAS/biofilter-based DAPS vs biofloc-based DFP/BFT). Plant-growth cells (Plant height, Leaf count, Plant fresh weight, Plant dry matter, AP/HYD productivity) use Cycle 2 (‘final production phase’, 21 d harvest) as the single most harvest-comparable dataset, per SCHEMA.md’s water-quality-style ‘one summary value’ convention extended here to plant growth since the paper ran two genuinely separate plantings (new seedlings each time) rather than two harvests of one crop. Cycle 1 (‘seedling phase’, 14 d, transplant 7->21 d.a.s.) used the SAME aquaculture-subsystem replicates and is fully preserved below since it is real, non-redundant data, not because the SCHEMA requires two rows — SCHEMA.md’s explicit instruction (‘if unsure, keep one row… merging is reversible, un-multiplying is not’) was followed in preference to the alternative of doubling every trial (4 -> 8 rows) as was done for pantanellaAquaponicsHydroponicsProduction2012’s two independent crop cycles; unlike that paper, here the AQUACULTURE side (fish performance, Table 4; aquaculture-subsystem water quality, Table 2) was measured ONCE over the full continuous 56-day trial and is not split by plant cycle at all, so treating the two lettuce plantings as separate trials would require artificially duplicating every fish-side cell across two rows with no new fish information in the second. CYCLE 1 FULL DATA (Table 5, mean+/-SD, n=6 PTs, all ns p>0.05 across all 5 treatments): leaf height 10.24+/-0.75 cm, root height 19.58+/-2.09 cm, total wet weight 14.05+/-1.27 g, total dry weight 0.83+/-0.10 g, productivity 261.41+/-23.63 g/m2, leaves 9.00+/-0.38. HP Cycle 1 (shared control, same for all 4 rows): leaf height 10.55+/-0.52 cm, root height 20.71+/-2.18 cm, total wet weight 14.36+/-0.98 g, total dry weight 0.86+/-0.06 g, productivity 267.24+/-18.15 g/m2, leaves 8.98+/-0.60. | WARN-MATERIAL fertilizer-volume percentage-reduction claims for DFP-32 (Discussion, p.9-10) vs raw fertilizer-volume figures (Results, p.6). Results p.6 states raw total fertilizer volume added per plant tank per cycle: Cycle 1 — HP 316.2 mL, DAPS 221.4 mL, DFP-32 208.1 mL, DFP-28 209.8 mL, DFP-24 213.6 mL; Cycle 2 — HP 366.2 mL, DAPS 318.9 mL, DFP-32 314.9 mL, DFP-28 315.9 mL, DFP-24 322.0 mL. Discussion p.9-10 states: ‘In Cycle 1, the volume of fertilizer added to a DFP-32 plant tank was approximately 51.9% and 6.4% lower than in HP and DAPS, respectively. In Cycle 2, these differences between DFP-32 to HP and DAPS dropped to 16.3% and 1.3%, respectively.’ Recomputing directly from the Results p.6 raw values: Cycle 1 DFP-32 vs HP = (316.2-208.1)/316.2 = 34.2% (not 51.9%); Cycle 1 DFP-32 vs DAPS = (221.4-208.1)/221.4 = 6.0% (matches the stated 6.4%, within rounding); Cycle 2 DFP-32 vs HP = (366.2-314.9)/366.2 = 14.0% (not 16.3%); Cycle 2 DFP-32 vs DAPS = (318.9-314.9)/318.9 = 1.3% (matches exactly). Both DAPS-relative percentages check out; both HP-relative percentages do not, by a consistent and non-trivial margin (about 18 and 2 percentage points off respectively) — this looks like a real arithmetic/reporting error in the Discussion’s HP comparison rather than a rounding artifact, though which of the two HP-comparison numbers (51.9%, 16.3%) the authors actually meant to compute cannot be determined from the paper. Recorded the raw, twice-stated Results p.6 volumes (unaffected either way) under NO COLUMN below; the Discussion’s HP-relative percentage claims are not entered anywhere and should not be cited without checking this note. No trials.csv cell is affected, since no dedicated fertilizer-volume or FUE-percent column holds this figure (FUE AP/FUE HYD are left NR because the paper never expresses fertilizer input against yield as a ratio — only as absolute mL and, in the Discussion, as an internally inconsistent %). This is the same relationship (less fertilizer needed at higher aquaponic nutrient loading) also reported cleanly and consistently for DFP-24/DFP-28 elsewhere in Results/Discussion, so the qualitative finding (DFP-32 needs least fertilizer, DFP-24/28 need slightly more, HP needs most) is not in doubt — only the exact HP-relative percentage magnitude is. | WATER COMPARTMENT NOTE: WATER COMPARTMENT NOTE (applies to all 4 rows): this paper reports two separate water-quality panels — Table 2 for the aquaculture subsystem (fish tank + RFS + MBBR/filters) and Table 3 for the hydroponic subsystem (plant tanks, PTs) — with DIFFERENT parameters measured in each (Table 2 has DO/TAN/NO2/NO3/orthophosphate/alkalinity/settleable solids; Table 3 has only temperature/EC/pH). Per SCHEMA.md’s compartment rule (‘take the plant bed / hydroponic unit value… note which compartment was used’), Aq pH, EC and Water temperature cells use the PLANT-TANK (Table 3) values, Cycle 2. Dissolved Oxigen, TAN/NH4-N, NO2-N and NO3-N cells use the AQUACULTURE-SUBSYSTEM (Table 2, fish-tank/RFS/MBBR) values instead, because the plant-bed equivalents for these four parameters were never measured at all (Table 3 has no DO/N-species columns) — using the aquaculture-side value here is the paper’s only reported approximation of the aquaponic loop’s nutrient/oxygen status, not a preference override of the compartment rule. | NOT DERIVED, left NR: Total Feed (kg) (FCR and weight gain per fish are both given, but total feed consumed per tank/treatment in kg is never stated as a figure; back-calculating it from FCR x biomass gain would be derivation); Fish biomass created (kg) (population-level final/initial biomass totals are not stated — only per-fish final weight, per-fish weight gain, and survival % are given; computing tank-level biomass created from fish count x weight would be derivation); N and K composition of the feed (Table 1 gives only crude protein, ether extract, crude fiber, ash, nitrogen-free extract, calcium, phosphorus and gross energy — no separate %N or %K); raw fish-body proximate composition (CP0/CPf, dry matter % of fish tissue) — the Methods state these were measured (freeze-dried whole-body samples, Leco FP528 analyzer) specifically to calculate PER/PPV/ CPwg, but the raw body-composition percentages themselves are never tabulated, only the final efficiency indices in Table 4; Lat/Long (Jaboticabal, SP, Brazil institutional location is named but no coordinates are stated anywhere in the paper; not filled from outside knowledge per the prime directive). | NO COLUMN: Protein-use efficiency indices (Table 4, all mean+/-SD, letters = Tukey groups, n=3): PER (protein efficiency ratio = mean weight gain / mean crude protein intake) DFP-24 3.82+/-0.19a, DFP-28 3.30+/-0.36ab, DFP-32 2.98+/-0.25b, BFT-32 3.41+/-0.11ab, DAPS-32 2.93+/-0.41b (p=0.021; text p.9 restates DFP-24’s PER as ‘3.83’, a WARN-MINOR rounding mismatch against the table’s 3.82, no cell affected since PER has no dedicated column); PPV (protein productive value, %) DFP-24 55.82+/-2.93a, DFP-28 50.71+/-3.90ab, DFP-32 48.32+/-5.69ab, BFT-32 58.43+/-2.60a, DAPS-32 40.11+/-5.70b (p=0.004); CPwg (crude protein on weight gain, %) DFP-24 14.65+/-0.93ab, DFP-28 15.43+/-1.29ab, DFP-32 16.17+/-1.04ab, BFT-32 17.14+/-1.25a, DAPS-32 13.7+/-0.24b (p=0.017). BFT-32 (tilapia-only biofloc treatment, NO plant/lettuce pairing at all — explicitly ‘a tilapia culture in BFT without integration with lettuce production’, p.3) is not given its own trials.csv row because it has no aquaponic (fish+plant) pairing to anchor a row on, but its full fish-performance and aquaculture-water-quality data (identical Table 2/4 structure to the four AP rows) is given here for reference since it is the paper’s key ‘biofloc benefit not lost to integration’ benchmark: Final weight 34.76+/-1.06 g(a), Weight gain 33.37+/-1.10 g(a), SGR 5.61+/-0.05(a), Productivity 6.10+/-0.28 kg/m3(a), Total length 12.10+/-0.47 cm, Standard length 10.16+/-0.42 cm, FCR 0.89+/-0.03, Survival 98.39+/-0%; water quality (Table 2): Temp 27.75+/-0.18C, DO 6.61+/-0.08(ab), pH 7.07+/-0.02(c), EC 0.50+/-0.02(a), TDS 0.32+/-0.01(a), Settleable Solids 36.87+/-5.01 mL/L, Alkalinity 86.57+/-13.94, Ammonia-N 0.36+/-0.08, Nitrite 0.35+/-0.03, Nitrate 0.70+/-0.09, Orthophosphate 1.82+/-0.11 mg/L. Full Table 1 diet formulation for all 4 CP levels (ingredients in g/kg: fish meal 32.2/38.2/43.6/49.1, poultry by-product meal 48.6/57.3/65.5/73.7, feather meal 15.9/19.1/21.8/24.6, soybean meal 247.3/341.8/431.3/520.4, corn 142.8/118.5/93.1/67.0, wheat meal 142.8/118.5/93.1/67.0, rice meal 142.8/118.5/93.1/67.0, broken rice 142.8/118.5/93.1/67.0, soy oil 37.4/28.7/27.0/28.1, limestone 9.7/8.1/6.5/5.0, dicalcium phosphate 20.0/19.0/18.3/17.5, vitamin-mineral premix 5.0 (all), antifungal 3.0 (all), antioxidant BHT 0.5 (all), methionine 1.0/0.3/0/0, lysine 3.2/0/0/0, salt 5.0 (all), for 24/28/32/36% CP respectively; centesimal composition: ether extract 96.1/85.8/81.8/80.4, crude fiber 56.1/55.4/54.1/52.6, ash 58.1/63.3/67.9/72.3, nitrogen-free extract 50.0/45.7/43.5/38.7, calcium 13.4 (all), phosphorus 6.6 (all), gross energy 17.0/16.8/16.9/16.9 MJ/kg). DFP-36 TREATMENT DISCONTINUED (not a row, no data analyzed/presented per the paper’s own statement, p.4): stocked and run identically to the other DFP arms but ‘high fish mortality occurred in all replicates of DFP-36 … after the middle of the experiment. After two days of exceptionally high temperatures (approximately 40C inside the greenhouse), a combination of high nutrient load, high settleable solids (volume of biofloc by Imhoff cones, 100 mL/L) and high water temperature (31.9C) caused a sudden drop in dissolved oxygen (0.8 mg/L) in the water at the end of the fortieth day of the experiment and, subsequently, the death of more than 80% of the fish. Thus, this treatment was discontinued, and its results were not analyzed and presented.’ Retained here as context only; no DFP-36 numbers exist to record anywhere. Raw fertilizer volumes and the Discussion percentage-mismatch: see WARN-MATERIAL flag above. Marketable-plant percentage: 83% of Cycle-1 seedlings and 100% of Cycle-2 harvested lettuce were marketable across ALL treatments (p.7-8, not broken out per treatment, so not a per-row cell). Min-Max ranges for every Table 2/3 water-quality parameter (omitted here as SCHEMA.md specifies trial mean+/-SD only, not ranges, when a mean is available — which it is throughout this paper).

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Decoupled FLOCponics systems as an alternative approach to reduce the protein level of tilapia juveniles' diet in integrated agri-aquaculture production

Decoupled FLOCponics systems as an alternative approach to reduce the protein level of tilapia juveniles’ diet in integrated agri-aquaculture production

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Abstract

Summary

Protein sparing and biofloc benefit under integration

Fish mortality event and DFP-36 exclusion

Lettuce growth and fertilizer input

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pinhoDecoupledFLOCponicsSystems2021-T1

pinhoDecoupledFLOCponicsSystems2021-T2

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