Enhanced growth response and stress mitigation of genetically improved farmed Tilapia in a biofloc integrated aquaponic system with bell pepper

Metadata

Cite key: saseendranEnhancedGrowthResponse2021
Item type: Journal Article
Authors: S. Saseendran, K. Dube, M.H. Chandrakant, A.M. Babitha Rani
Affiliation: Division of Aquaculture, ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Education, Mumbai, India (all authors)
Journal: Aquaculture 533 (2021) 736200
Date: 02/2021 (received 1 June 2020; accepted 22 November 2020; available online 26 November 2020)
Date added: 2026-08-10
DOI: 10.1016/j.aquaculture.2020.736200
Funding: Not stated in the paper (Acknowledgment thanks the ICAR-CIFE Director for granting permission and RGCA, Andhra Pradesh for supplying experimental fish; no grant/funding body named)
URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2020.736200
PDF: Saseendran et al. - 2021 - Enhanced growth response and stress mitigation of .pdf

Opinion

A tidy completely-randomised-design stocking-density trial (3 biofloc densities + 1 non-biofloc control, triplicated) with an unusually broad panel for a “growth” paper — fish growth/FCR, bell pepper yield/height/leaf-and-root biomass/chlorophyll, a full water-quality panel (pH, DO, TAN, NO2-N, NO3-N, phosphate, turbidity, settling solids, Na/K/Ca), and four fish stress biomarkers (serum cortisol, serum glucose, catalase, SOD) that directly support the title’s “stress mitigation” claim. The headline result — biofloc integration improves both fish growth and stress physiology relative to conventional aquaponics at matched density, with an optimum around 150 fish/m3 for bell pepper yield — is clearly stated and internally corroborated across Results, Discussion and Conclusion for most variables. The significant weakness is Table 1: recomputing the paper’s own SGR formula from a final body weight the Discussion states only once (73.53 g for T1, 56.03 g for Control) gives an SGR roughly 60-65% higher than the SGR actually tabulated, and the same numbers don’t fully reconcile against PWG (%) either — see the WARN-MATERIAL flag below. This doesn’t block the paper’s qualitative conclusions (all comparative rankings are self-consistent across Results text, Table 1, Table 2 and Table 3), but it means the specific SGR magnitudes should not be cited without independent verification. This is also a plant-secondary paper in an aquaculture journal: bell pepper is Table 2/3 data only, with no leaf mineral or nitrate panel at all — useful mainly for the biofloc-vs-conventional-aquaponics contrast and the fish stress-physiology angle, not for plant nutritional quality.

Abstract

The experimental trial was performed for 120 days with different stocking densities of fish ie, 150 no.m−3(T1), 250 no.m−3 (T2) and 350 no.m−3 (T3) in an aquaponic system integrated with biofloc technology (BFT) and the control aquaponic unit with stocking density of 150 no.m−3 without biofloc. The weight and length of fish at the time of stocking were 1.44 ± 0.12 g and 3.92 ± 0.09 cm respectively. The growth and production of fish and bell pepper were significantly higher in the biofloc integrated aquaponic (BFT-AQP) units compared to clear water aquaponics system (AQP). The water quality parameters like dissolved oxygen (6.54 ± 0.05 mg L−1) and nitrate-N (5.26 ± 0.49 mg L−1) were high in control compared to treatments. Significantly higher specific growth rate and protein efficiency ratio for fish reared in T1 (2.03% day−1 and 2.31, respectively) followed by T2 (1.79% day−1 and 2.18, respectively). The results revealed that fishes reared in integrated system showed significantly (p < 0.05) lower stress parameters especially in treatments T1 and T2 as compared to control. The present study concluded that the integration of biofloc system with aquaponics can be recommended for better production of GIFT strain of tilapia, maintaining a stocking density of 150 no.m−3 for ideal production of bell pepper, without creating any stressful environment for fish.

Summary

The authors ran a 120-day completely randomised design (CRD) trial at ICAR-CIFE, Mumbai, India, comparing three biofloc-integrated aquaponic (BFT-AQP) stocking densities of GIFT-strain tilapia — 150 (T1), 250 (T2) and 350 (T3) fish/m3 — against a conventional, non-biofloc aquaponic control (AQP, also 150 fish/m3), each in triplicate, all growing bell pepper (Capsicum annum L., paper’s spelling) in gravel-bed, flood-and-drain plant beds at 12 plants/m2. Fish growth (SGR, percent weight gain, biomass gain), feed conversion (FCR) and protein efficiency ratio (PER) were all significantly better in the biofloc treatments than the control, with T1 (lowest density) performing best and growth declining with increasing density within the BFT-AQP treatments; survival was 100% in all four groups. Bell pepper yield, height, leaf/root fresh weight and leaf chlorophyll-a were all significantly higher under biofloc than the non-biofloc control, with T1 giving the single highest per-plant yield (338.10 g vs 98.85 g in control) even though T2 had the highest leaf fresh weight and T2/T3 had significantly higher water nitrate-N than T1. Water quality (dissolved oxygen, TAN, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate, turbidity, settling solids, Na/K/Ca) differed significantly between biofloc and control, generally in the direction the biofloc literature predicts (higher turbidity/solids, more stable low-level nitrogenous compounds, higher DO in the non-biofloc control). Fish stress biomarkers (serum cortisol, catalase, superoxide dismutase) were all significantly elevated in the control relative to the biofloc treatments, and rose with increasing stocking density within BFT-AQP, supporting the paper’s stress-mitigation argument; serum glucose did not differ significantly between any group. The paper concludes that biofloc integration improves both growth performance and fish welfare relative to conventional aquaponics, and recommends 150 fish/m3 as the density that best balances fish growth against bell pepper yield.

Experiment data

Location: Wet laboratory, Division of Aquaculture, ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Education (ICAR-CIFE), Mumbai, India; semi-translucent roofed shed to exclude direct sunlight

Design: Completely randomised design (CRD, paper’s own words, Methods 2.1), 3 biofloc-integrated stocking-density treatments (T1 150, T2 250, T3 350 no.m-3) plus a non-biofloc aquaponic control (AQP, 150 no.m-3), all in triplicate independent recirculating units (250 L fish tank + 0.25 m2 gravel plant bed each). One-way ANOVA + Duncan’s multiple range test, p<0.05, SPSS-16.0

Replicates / n: 3 independent aquaponic units per treatment/control (12 units total); n=15 fish/tank sampled every 15 days for growth (45 fish/treatment per sampling round); n=3 fish/replicate sampled at trial end for stress biomarkers

Duration: 120 days (fish stocking to harvest); fish pre-acclimatized 25 days before stocking; bell pepper seedlings pre-grown 20 days in pots before transfer to the aquaponic bed — see Extraction notes on a WARN-CHECK over which clock the plant-side “120 days” is counted from

Organisms: GIFT tilapia (Genetically Improved Farmed Tilapia strain; paper never states the Linnean binomial for its own study fish, see Extraction notes) / Bell pepper (Capsicum annuum) (Capsicum annum L., paper’s own spelling)

Statistics: One-way ANOVA + Duncan’s multiple range test (p<0.05), SPSS-16.0 (Methods 2.6)

Feed Conversion Rate (FCR): lowest (best) in T1, 1.29 ± 0.04; highest (worst) in T3, 1.63 ± 0.02; Control 1.61 ± 0.03 (Table 1 misprints this as “0.0.03”, resolved via Discussion restatement)

Specific Growth Rate (SGR): T1 2.03 ± 0.07 > Control 1.84 ± 0.06 > T2 1.79 ± 0.01 > T3 1.60 ± 0.09 %/day — see WARN-MATERIAL below on a cross-check inconsistency against the paper’s own stated final body weight

Bell pepper yield: T1 338.10 ± 5.19 g/plant (highest) > T2 297.38 ± 3.71 > T3 286.89 ± 6.44 (Table 2 misprints as “6..44”) > Control 98.85 ± 1.66 g/plant (lowest)

Fish stress biomarkers: serum cortisol, catalase and SOD all significantly higher in Control than in T1/T2 (p<0.05); serum glucose not significantly different among any group

Growth performance under biofloc integration vs. conventional aquaponics

This paper: Biofloc integration (BFT-AQP) significantly improved fish growth and feed efficiency relative to the non-biofloc AQP control at matched stocking density (150/m3): T1’s FCR (1.29 ± 0.04) was significantly better than Control’s (1.61 ± 0.03), and T1’s SGR (2.03 ± 0.07 %/day) and PER (2.91 ± 0.05) were the highest of all four groups. Within the biofloc treatments, growth declined as stocking density increased (T1 > T2 > T3 for SGR and PER; FCR worsened T1 < T2 < T3), which the authors attribute to competition for food and space at higher densities. All four groups had 100% survival. The paper’s own Discussion (p.5) separately states final individual body weight for T1 (73.53 ± 3.08 g) and Control (56.03 ± 2.24 g) — figures that do not appear in Table 1 and are given nowhere else in the paper. Recomputing SGR backwards from these stated final weights, using the paper’s own formula (Methods 2.2) and its stated initial weight (1.44 ± 0.12 g), gives 3.28 %/day for T1 and 3.05 %/day for Control — roughly 60-65% higher than Table 1’s tabulated SGR for the same two groups. Percent weight gain (PWG, Table 1) implies final weights (~88 g T1, ~78 g Control) that are closer to, but still do not exactly match, the Discussion’s stated weights. No single input can be identified as the error; see the WARN-MATERIAL flag in trials.csv Experimental Remarks for full detail. This does not affect the paper’s qualitative growth ranking (T1 > T2/Control > T3 is consistent across every metric and every restatement in Results/Discussion/Conclusion), but the specific magnitude of the growth-rate improvement should not be taken from Table 1’s SGR column without independent verification.

Compared with:

#todo Haridas et al. 2017 — GIFT tilapia in indoor biofloc units at different stocking densities, enhanced growth/immuno-physiological response reported; cited repeatedly as this paper’s closest methodological precedent for both the growth-density relationship and the stress-mitigation argument (p.5-6)
#todo Azim and Little 2008 — higher FCR in clear water vs biofloc water at matched protein feed in Nile tilapia juveniles, same direction as this paper’s Control-vs-BFT FCR contrast (p.5)
#todo Pinho et al. 2017 — higher FCR reported for conventional aquaponics vs BFT-based aquaponics; also reported higher lettuce yield under biofloc-integrated aquaponics vs clear-water aquaponics, corroborating this paper’s own bell-pepper-yield finding (p.5, p.6)
#todo Kamal 2006 — aquaponic bell pepper yields of 63 g/plant (10 plants/m2) and 45 g/plant (15 plants/m2) over 180 days in a non-biofloc aquaponic system; substantially lower than this paper’s yields at any density/treatment, and cited as the source of the “100 no.m-3 maximum stocking density” benchmark this paper’s authors say their BFT-AQP system exceeds (p.5-6)
#todo Rakocy et al. 2006 — fruiting plants set less fruit when the aquaponic system accumulates excess nitrate; cited as the mechanism explanation for why bell pepper fruit yield was lower in T2/T3 (higher water NO3-N) than T1 despite T2 having the highest leaf fresh weight (p.6)
#todo Roosta and Mohsenian 2012 — foliar Fe spray effects on pepper in aquaponics; cited as a comparison point for optimum aquaponic pH for plant growth (5.5-6.5, per Tyson et al. 2004) against which this study’s observed pH (7.0-7.4) was judged too high for ideal plant nutrient uptake (p.6)

Bell pepper production and the nitrate/fruiting trade-off

This paper: Bell pepper yield, height, leaf fresh weight, root fresh weight and leaf chlorophyll-a were all significantly higher under biofloc-integrated aquaponics than the non-biofloc control (p<0.05 for all). However, within the BFT-AQP treatments, fruit yield fell as stocking density rose (T1 338.10 > T2 297.38 > T3 286.89 g/plant) even though leaf fresh weight was actually highest in T2 (31.60 ± 10.17 g/plant, vs T1’s 28.46 ± 2.42). The authors attribute this to higher water NO3-N at higher stocking densities driving more vegetative growth at the expense of fruit set (citing Rakocy et al. 2006), consistent with T2/T3 both having significantly higher NO3-N than T1 in Table 4’s water panel. Water pH ranged 7.0-7.4 across all groups, which the authors note is above literature-cited optimum for plant nutrient uptake in aquaponics (5.5-6.5, per Tyson et al. 2004), though no pH control/buffering is described anywhere in the Methods.

Compared with:

#todo Chaves et al. 2000, Rakocy et al. 2004, Lewis et al. 1978, McMurty et al. 1993, Mariscal-Lagarda et al. 2012 — cited collectively as evidence that most aquaponics research to date concentrates on leafy greens and tomatoes, framing bell pepper as an understudied crop for aquaponics (p.2, p.6)
#todo Argenta et al. 2001 — chlorophyll as a physiological indicator of plant nitrogen status; cited to support the interpretation of this paper’s own chlorophyll-a result as reflecting superior nitrogen uptake in BFT-AQP (p.6)

Fish stress physiology (cortisol, glucose, catalase, superoxide dismutase)

This paper: All four antioxidant/stress biomarkers moved in the direction supporting the paper’s “stress mitigation” claim: serum cortisol, catalase and SOD were all significantly higher in the non-biofloc Control than in the lower-density biofloc treatments (T1 lowest for all three), and cortisol/SOD rose progressively with stocking density within BFT-AQP (T1 < T2 < T3). Serum glucose showed the same directional trend but was not statistically significant (p>0.05) between any group. The authors interpret the biofloc-associated antioxidant components (e.g. carotenoids, citing Ju et al. 2008) as plausibly lowering the fishes’ own enzymatic antioxidant burden (i.e. lower measured catalase/SOD reflects lower oxidative stress, not worse antioxidant capacity), and argue this — alongside the growth/FCR data — supports raising stocking density safely within a biofloc system relative to conventional aquaponics.

Compared with:

#todo EL-Khaldi 2010 — tilapia show increased serum cortisol and glucose under stressful rearing conditions; cited as the physiological basis for treating cortisol/glucose as stress indicators here (p.6)
#todo Ju et al. 2008 — antioxidant substances (carotenoids) in biofloc reduce oxidative stress in shrimp; cited as the likely mechanism for this paper’s lower catalase/SOD values under biofloc (p.6)
#todo Zahran and Risha 2014 — catalase and SOD increase with increasing physiological stress in fish; cited as the basis for interpreting this paper’s own CAT/SOD results (p.6-7)
#todo Martins et al. 2009 — cited alongside Haridas et al. 2017 as corroborating this paper’s finding that GIFT tilapia can be reared at higher densities in an integrated biofloc system without detectable welfare cost (p.6)

Citations to chase

Extraction notes

Type classification: Recorded as experiment. Methods 2.1 explicitly states “The experimental design was completely randomised design (CRD)” with defined treatments (3 stocking densities + control), true replication (3 independent physical units per treatment/control), and formal statistical comparison (one-way ANOVA + Duncan’s multiple range test, p<0.05) — a clean match to SCHEMA.md’s experiment test.

Trial structure — no hydroponic arm, judgment call. This paper’s four groups (Control, T1, T2, T3) are ALL aquaponic systems (each has a 250 L fish tank + gravel plant bed); there is no hydroponic-only (no-fish) treatment anywhere in the study, unlike most other papers in this vault. The paper’s actual experimental contrast is stocking density (T1/T2/T3, all biofloc-integrated) vs. a single non-biofloc aquaponic Control at the lowest density (150/m3). Recorded as 3 trials.csv rows (T1, T2, T3, matching the paper’s own labels exactly), with HYD = NA throughout (no hydroponic-only treatment exists to populate it) and the AQP-only Control’s full dataset preserved in each row’s Experimental Remarks (a “CONTROL baseline” block) rather than placed in the HYD-labelled cells, since Control has fish and is not hydroponic — putting its values in HYD would misrepresent the paper’s design. Only T1 is density-matched to Control (both 150/m3); T2 and T3 have no density-matched non-biofloc comparator. This is a genuine structural mismatch between this paper’s design and the vault’s AP/HYD schema convention, flagged explicitly here rather than silently forcing Control into either column.

⚠️WARN-MATERIAL SGR vs. final body weight cross-check (Table 1 vs. Discussion p.5), full detail in trials.csv Experimental Remarks (T1 row). Methods 2.2 gives the study’s own SGR formula and a uniform stocking weight (1.44 ± 0.12 g). Table 1 states SGR for all four groups (Control 1.84, T1 2.03, T2 1.79, T3 1.60 %/day), corroborated by Results 3.1’s ranking text. Discussion p.5 — in a paragraph opening “In our experiment…”, and pairing its numbers with FCR values (1.29 T1, 1.61 Control) that exactly match Table 1, confirming the data are this paper’s own and not a citation — separately states final individual body weight for T1 (73.53 ± 3.08 g) and Control (56.03 ± 2.24 g), figures never tabulated anywhere else. Applying the paper’s own SGR formula backwards from these stated weights gives SGR values 60-65% higher than Table 1’s tabulated SGR for the same two groups (Control: implied 3.05 vs. stated 1.84; T1: implied 3.28 vs. stated 2.03). Cross-checking against PWG (%) instead gives implied final weights (~78 g Control, ~88 g T1) closer to, but still not matching, the Discussion figures. No candidate value can be identified as the transcription error from the paper alone. Both SGR (Table 1) and Fish size final (Discussion, T1 only) are recorded in trials.csv exactly as printed, since neither has a competing figure for the same cell — only the cross-formula consistency between different stated quantities fails. T2 and T3 have no stated final body weight to independently confirm the same check, but the same doubt reasonably extends to their SGR values. Affects: interpretation of the paper’s central growth-improvement claim; Fish size final recorded NR for T2/T3.

⚠️WARN-MINOR typos (all resolved, no cell left UNCLEAR), full detail in trials.csv Experimental Remarks: Table 1 FCR, Control row prints “1.61 ± 0.0.03a” (extra decimal), resolved to 0.03 via an independent Discussion-text restatement of the same figure. Table 2 yield, T3 prints “286.89 ± 6..44b” (double decimal, single stray keystroke), resolved to 6.44 as the only sensible reading. Table 4 Sodium, T2 prints “96.06 ± .98a” (missing leading zero), resolved to 0.98.

⚠️WARN-CHECK Days Plant after transplant. The paper states one “120 days” duration applied to the whole experiment (fish-stocking-anchored, Methods 2.1) and separately ties bell pepper harvest to “the end of the experimental period of 120 days” (Methods 2.3), but never explicitly synchronizes the pepper’s own transplant date with fish stocking day-0 — pepper was pre-grown 20 days in pots before transfer, and fish were pre-acclimatized 25 days before stocking, so there are at least two candidate day-0 points that are never tied together. Recorded 120 days (the only duration figure directly tied to plant harvest in the text). Added to REVIEW.md by the batch merge step.

Fish scientific name never stated for the study organism. The paper names its study fish only as “GIFT strain of tilapia” / “Genetically Improved Farmed Tilapia (GIFT)” throughout Abstract, Methods and Results. “Oreochromis niloticus” appears seven times in this paper, but only inside citations of other authors’ work in the reference list (e.g. Ekasari and Maryam 2012, Yi et al. 1996) — never applied to this study’s own fish in the body text. Per CLAUDE.md’s prime directive and SCHEMA.md’s “Category fields take the paper’s own wording” rule (cf. Alcarraz’s rainbow trout example), the Fish column and Organisms field record “GIFT tilapia” / “GIFT strain of tilapia” only, without appending the Linnean binomial, even though GIFT is widely known outside this paper to be a Nile tilapia strain. A new wikilink target was used (“GIFT tilapia,” left unlinked/plain text here) rather than assuming the vault’s existing [[Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus)]] canonical form applies, since this paper’s own text does not make that identification. Flagged for the user’s awareness in case a future batch wants to standardize this across GIFT-strain papers using external knowledge (which the extraction rules currently forbid).

Air supplement judgment call. Methods 2.3 (biofloc preparation) explicitly states air stones + a 60W air pump were used “for each tank” to maintain floc suspension and fish oxygen supply — clearly applying to the T1/T2/T3 (BFT) tanks. Fig. 1’s caption separately lists an “aeration system (air pump, air tube and air stones)” as component “h” of “a single unit used in the experiment,” a generic diagram that appears to describe the physical design shared by all four groups (Methods 2.1 describes one unit design for the whole study, with biofloc-specific detail added only in 2.2/2.3). Air supplement recorded Y for all three trial rows on the unambiguous Methods 2.3 basis; whether the non-biofloc Control also received the same intensive aeration is UNCLEAR (Fig. 1 suggests yes as part of the general design, but the explicit “intensively powered” aeration description in the text is scoped specifically to BFT tanks) — noted in each row’s Air supplementDetails rather than asserted either way for Control.

[not reported] / NR fields, grouped across all 3 rows:

Fish: Fish Category (no categorical term applied beyond “GIFT strain of tilapia”); feed N/P/K composition beyond the stated 30% crude protein; Total Feed (kg); Fish biomass created (kg) (only kg/m3 density figures given, converting to kg would need system volume — derivation); Fish weight gain (g) (Discussion gives final weight for T1/Control only as absolute grams, Table 1 gives PWG as a percentage; subtracting to get a gram figure would be derivation even for T1); Fish size final for T2/T3 (never stated for these two treatments, only PWG% and biomass kg/m3).
Water: Water type, Water classification (never categorised in the paper’s own words); Daily Water exchange rate (water topped up weekly to offset losses, no % given); EC (never measured/reported anywhere in this paper); pHOptimal (paper cites Tyson et al. 2004’s literature figure of 5.5-6.5 as the ideal range but never states its own target/setpoint — no pH control/buffering is described in Methods); FUE AP, FUE HYD, WUE (no fertilizer-use or water-use efficiency ratio computed anywhere; the aquaponic system runs on fish-waste nutrients only, no supplemental fertilizer mentioned); Lat/Long (Mumbai, India named as the institutional site — ICAR-CIFE — but no coordinates stated in the paper; not filled from outside knowledge per the prime directive); Average room Temperature (only water temperature given, Table 4; no separate ambient/room air figure).
Plant: Plant Category (no categorical term applied); Leaf count; Plant dry matter (%) (only fresh weight measured for leaves/roots/fruit; no dry-weight or moisture-content determination reported); SPAD (chlorophyll measured by acetone-extraction spectrophotometry, not a SPAD meter); Tissue nitrate AP (no leaf or fruit nitrate analysis of any kind reported — unusual for a bell pepper paper given the nitrate-driven fruiting mechanism discussed narratively).
Site: Biological system already in use (not stated whether the biofilter/system was pre-cycled/matured before stocking); Iron supplemented, Remineralization, pH Buffers, Climate control (beyond the passive shed roof, no active system described), Artificial Lighting, Nutrient supplemented — none of these are mentioned anywhere in the Methods; recorded NR (not N) per SCHEMA.md’s rule that silence must not be recorded as an explicit absence.

NO COLUMN items (full figures preserved in each trial row’s Experimental Remarks): PWG (%) and PER (protein efficiency ratio) for all four groups — no dedicated schema columns exist for either, despite PER being one of the paper’s headline significant-difference metrics (Abstract); Final biomass (kg/m3) for all four groups (no “final stock density” column exists, only Initial Stock density); fish count stocking density in the paper’s own units (no./m3: 150/250/350); Leaf fresh weight and Root fresh weight (g/plant, Table 3) for all four groups — distinct from the fruit-yield figure used in the Plant fresh weight cell; water Phosphate, Turbidity, Settling solids/floc volume, Sodium, Potassium, and Calcium (Table 4) for all four groups — a genuine water-mineral/floc panel with no column home in trials.csv, similar to other papers’ excluded water-mineral panels (e.g. pantanellaAquaponicsHydroponicsProduction2012); all four fish stress biomarkers (serum cortisol, serum glucose, catalase, superoxide dismutase, Table 5) for all four groups — this is arguably the paper’s most novel dataset (directly supporting the title’s “stress mitigation” claim) and has no column home anywhere in the 87-column schema, flagged here explicitly per SCHEMA.md’s instruction to say so rather than force-fit or silently drop; chlorophyll-a assay method detail (80% acetone extraction, spectrophotometric, Kamble et al. 2015 method).

plant_measurements.csv scope decision. Only leaf chlorophyll-a (Table 3, biochemistry category) fit plant_measurements.csv’s four analyte categories (biochemistry/mineral/microbiology/proximate); recorded as 6 rows (T1/T2/T3 each paired with the shared Control value, duplicated per the vault’s established convention for a single shared control, e.g. mourantianBasilFunctionalGrowth2023, pantanellaAquaponicsHydroponicsProduction2012). Leaf and root fresh weight (Table 3) were deliberately NOT routed to plant.csv, since raw biomass-by-plant-part is a growth metric, not a tissue analyte, and does not fit any of the four defined categories — it is preserved in trials.csv Experimental Remarks (NO COLUMN) instead. No leaf mineral (N/P/K/micronutrient) or tissue nitrate panel exists anywhere in this paper to extract.

No water panel excluded beyond what’s noted above — the full Table 4 water-mineral/floc dataset (phosphate, turbidity, settling solids, Na, K, Ca) is genuine trial-level data with no column home in trials.csv and does not fit plant_measurements.csv’s plant-analyte scope either; it is fully preserved in each trial row’s Experimental Remarks (NO COLUMN) rather than discarded.

Tags judgment call. Tagged Meta/Fish/Tilapia (reusing the vault’s existing generic Tilapia leaf, since GIFT is a farmed strain of tilapia the paper studied directly, even though the paper itself never states the species-level binomial — see the “Fish scientific name” note above) and Meta/Plant/Bell-Pepper (reusing the existing leaf introduced in godaOptimizingNutrientUtilization2024, rather than creating a new “Capsicum” or “Pepper” leaf). Meta/Region/South-Asia reused from existing India-sited vault entries (e.g. akterComparisonIndianSpinach2025’s Bangladesh row uses the trials.csv value “South Asia”; the tag-level convention Meta/Region/South-Asia matches multiple existing notes). No new tag facets introduced.

New wikilink targets introduced: S. Saseendran, K. Dube, M.H. Chandrakant, A.M. Babitha Rani (no existing notes for these authors found in the vault). Bell pepper (Capsicum annuum) is a new wikilink target — no existing bell pepper / Capsicum note found in the vault (checked against existing Meta/Plant/ organism-note conventions such as [[Lettuce (Lactuca sativa)]], [[Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus)]]); spelled with the taxonomically correct “annuum” in the wikilink target despite the paper’s own consistent “annum” spelling in running text (the wikilink target names the organism, not a direct quotation, so the correct binomial was used there, distinct from the trials.csv Plant cell which preserves the paper’s own spelling verbatim per SCHEMA.md’s own-wording rule).

PDF quality: Clean text layer throughout (8 pages, standard two-column Elsevier typesetting), fully extractable via PyMuPDF, no OCR needed. Tables 1, 2 and 4 contain several stray/duplicated decimal points and one missing leading zero (see WARN-MINOR entries above) that read as source-PDF typesetting artifacts rather than extraction errors — the same digit sequences appear identically on direct inspection of the PDF. Table 5’s final row (T3 serum glucose) is split across two lines by column-wrapping in the source PDF; reassembled without incident.

Source: Saseendran et al. - 2021 - Enhanced growth response and stress mitigation of .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

saseendranEnhancedGrowthResponse2021-T1

Fish

Field	Value
Fish	GIFT strain of tilapia (Genetically Improved Farmed Tilapia; n=1500 obtained from Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Aquaculture, Andhra Pradesh, India)
Initial Stock density	0.21 +/- 0.00
FCR	1.29 +/- 0.04
SGR	2.03 +/- 0.07
Protein	30
% of body weight	2
Fish size initial	1.44 +/- 0.12
Fish size final	73.53 +/- 3.08
Feed routine	Fed twice daily (10:00 and 17:00 hrs); ration recalculated fortnightly against sampled biomass (fish sampled every 15 days, n=15/tank, Methods 2.2)
Feed regime	Commercial floating pellet feed, 30% crude protein, fed at 2% of total stocked biomass/day (Methods 2.2)
Fish survival rate	100
Fish trial duration (days)	120

Water

Field	Value
Water recycle	8.33
Water volume in the system	250 (fish tank capacity only; plant bed water volume not separately stated)
Aq pH	7.00 +/- 0.25
Dissolved Oxigen	4.63 +/- 0.21
Water temperature	29.38 +/- 0.05
TAN / NH4-N	0.42 +/- 0.01
NO2-N	0.13 +/- 0.02
NO3-N	2.86 +/- 0.51

Plant

Field	Value
Plant	Bell pepper (Capsicum annum L.)
Details	Seedlings grown 20 days in pots (soil medium), detached and roots washed free of soil, then transferred bare-root to gravel aquaponic bed at mean height 10.17 +/- 0.18 cm (Methods 2.3); 12 plants/m2, constant across all treatments and control; harvested at end of 120-day experimental period
Days Plant after transplant	120
Plants/m2	12
Plant height	60.60 +/- 4.56
Plant fresh weight	338.10 +/- 5.19

System & Setup

Field	Value
System type	Media-based (gravel) recirculating aquaponic unit, flood-and-drain (ebb-flow) via bell siphon; biofloc-integrated (BFT-AQP) in T1-T3, absent in the paper’s own AQP-only Control (see Experimental Remarks)
Media Details	Gravel medium, plant bed 60x42x30cm (0.25 m2 surface area/unit); circular fish tank 250 L capacity; submersible pump 0.02 hp; water flow fish tank -> plant bed 500 L/hr (UNIT CONVERSION ONLY: 500 L/hr = 8.33 L/min); pump cycled 20 min on/40 min off hourly via Crouzet TMR 48L cyclic timer; PVC pipework 12.7mm; perforated PVC (5-inch) + geotextile filtration unit in fish tank to retain floc (Methods 2.1)
Air supplement	Y (Air stones + air pump (60W, 0.038 MPa) per BFT tank, intensively aerated to maintain floc suspension and O2 supply (Methods 2.3); Fig. 1 depicts aeration (item h) as part of the general single-unit design — Control’s aeration status is UNCLEAR (see Extraction notes))
Equipment	Circular fish tank (250 L) with gravel-medium plant bed (0.25 m2), flood-and-drain via bell siphon; submersible pump (0.02 hp); Crouzet TMR 48L cyclic timer; air pump (60W, 0.038 MPa) + air stones (BFT tanks, Methods 2.3); UV-VIS spectrophotometer (analytical technologies; water phosphate, Methods 2.4); flame photometer (Elico CL 378, Hyderabad; water Na/K/Ca, Methods 2.4); nepheloturbidimeter (turbidimeter+AQ4500); Imhoff cone (settling solids/floc volume); Cortisol EIA Kit 9 (Cayman Chemicals; serum cortisol); glucose kit (Transasia Bio-Medicals, Cat No. 120235; serum glucose); UV spectrophotometer (SOD assay, 480nm; CAT assay, 240nm)
Control Parameters	Water pump cycle 20 min on/40 min off hourly; flow rate 500 L/hr fish tank->plant bed; feeding 2x/day (10:00, 17:00 hrs) at 2% stocked biomass/day, adjusted fortnightly per 15-day growth sampling; biofloc C:N ratio 15:1, wheat flour (50% carbon/g) added regularly as carbon source (Methods 2.3, following Hargreaves 2013 and Avnimelech 1999); water level topped up weekly to offset evaporation/transpiration/handling loss; semi-translucent roofed shed to prevent direct sunlight (Methods 2.1)
Combination	GIFT tilapia (biofloc-integrated aquaponics, BFT-AQP) and bell pepper (Capsicum annum L.) at three fish stocking densities; this row = T1 (150 no.m-3, BFT-AQP) vs shared AQP-only Control (150 no.m-3, no biofloc, density-matched)

Site

Field	Value
Region	South Asia
Country	India

Results & Statistics

Field	Value
Measured Unit	g/plant (bell pepper fruit yield, Table 2); %/day (SGR); kg/m3 (fish biomass, Initial Stock density); mg/L (water quality, Table 4); cm (plant height); ug/L (chlorophyll-a, Table 3, see plant.csv)
Statistic Details	One-way ANOVA + Duncan’s multiple range test (p<0.05) for growth, water quality, plant growth, and stress parameters; SPSS-16.0 (Methods 2.6)
Statistically analysed	Y
Replicates (n)	3
AP	338.10

Experimental Remarks: TRIAL DEFINITION: T1 = lowest of three biofloc stocking densities, density-matched to Control, biofloc-integrated aquaponics (BFT-AQP), GIFT tilapia at 150 no.m-3 stocking density, 120-day trial, triplicate independent aquaponic units (Methods 2.1: ‘completely randomised design (CRD) with three treatments…and a control…all the treatments and control was in triplicates’). Paired reference in the paper = the shared AQP-only Control (150 no.m-3, no biofloc, also triplicate) — but Control is itself an aquaponic system (has fish + plant bed), not a hydroponic-only (no-fish) treatment, so it does NOT fit this schema’s HYD column, which specifically denotes a no-fish hydroponic control. HYD is recorded NA throughout this paper (no hydroponic-only arm was ever run) and Control’s full dataset is preserved in the CONTROL baseline note below instead of in the HYD-labelled cells, to avoid misrepresenting an aquaponic-without-biofloc system as a hydroponic one. Only T1 is density-matched to Control (both 150 no.m-3); T2 and T3 have no density-matched non-biofloc comparator in this paper. | CONTROL (AQP-only, no biofloc, 150 no.m-3, shared across all three trials, Tables 1-5): SGR 1.84 +/- 0.06 %/day; PWG 5289 +/- 625.18% (NO COLUMN — percent weight gain, no dedicated column); FCR 1.61 +/- 0.03 (Table 1 misprints ‘1.61 +/- 0.0.03a’; corrected via Discussion p.5 restatement ‘1.61 +/- 0.03’, WARN-MINOR, see below); PER 2.31 +/- 0.08 (NO COLUMN — protein efficiency ratio, no dedicated column); Initial biomass 0.21 +/- 0.00 kg/m3; Final biomass 8.40 +/- 0.85 kg/m3 (NO COLUMN — no ‘final stock density’ column exists); Survival 100%; Final individual body weight 56.03 +/- 2.24 g (Discussion p.5 only, not tabulated — see WARN-MATERIAL below); Bell pepper yield 98.85 +/- 1.66 g/plant; Plant height 54.70 +/- 3.03 cm; Leaf fresh weight 5.40 +/- 1.45 g/plant (NO COLUMN); Root fresh weight 7.70 +/- 0.77 g/plant (NO COLUMN); Chlorophyll a 12.47 +/- 1.91 ug/L (recorded in plant.csv, System=Control); Water: DO 6.54 +/- 0.05 mg/L, pH 7.20 +/- 0.04, Temp 29.40 +/- 0.94 C, TAN 0.32 +/- 0.02 mg/L, NO2-N 0.28 +/- 0.03 mg/L, NO3-N 5.26 +/- 0.49 mg/L, Phosphate 8.86 +/- 0.14 mg/L (NO COLUMN), Turbidity 7.72 +/- 0.33 NTU (NO COLUMN), Settling solids 0.00 mL/L (NO COLUMN), Na 77.60 +/- 5.00 mg/L (NO COLUMN), K(water) 24.60 +/- 3.23 mg/L (NO COLUMN), Ca 513.73 +/- 44.11 mg/L (NO COLUMN); Stress: serum cortisol 67.00 +/- 1.52 ng/mL, serum glucose 98.29 +/- 9.24 mg/dL, catalase 8.72 +/- 1.02 U/mg protein, SOD 82.59 +/- 4.04 U/mg protein (all NO COLUMN — no fish stress-biomarker columns exist in this schema). | WARN-MATERIAL SGR vs. final body weight cross-check (Table 1 vs Discussion p.5). Methods 2.2 states the study’s own SGR formula: ‘SGR (%) = (ln(W2)-ln(W1)/no. of days) x 100’, with W1=1.44 +/- 0.12 g stated as the uniform mean stocking weight for all treatments/control (Methods 2.2). Table 1 gives SGR (Control 1.84 +/- 0.06, T1 2.03 +/- 0.07, T2 1.79 +/- 0.01, T3 1.60 +/- 0.09 %/day), corroborated by Results 3.1 ranking text (‘highest SGR…T1…followed by C, T2…lowest…T3’). Discussion p.5 separately states (opening ‘In our experiment…’, unambiguously this study’s own data, not a literature citation) individual final body weight: T1 ‘73.53 +/- 3.08’ g and Control ‘56.03 +/- 2.24’ g, paired in the same sentence with FCR values (1.29 +/- 0.04 T1, 1.61 +/- 0.03 Control) that match Table 1’s FCR exactly — confirming these ARE this paper’s own T1/Control data, not misattributed from a cited paper. Applying the paper’s own SGR formula backwards from these stated final weights: Control implies SGR = ln(56.03/1.44)/120100 = 3.05 %/day (vs Table 1’s stated 1.84); T1 implies SGR = ln(73.53/1.44)/120100 = 3.28 %/day (vs Table 1’s stated 2.03) — both roughly 60-65% higher than the tabulated SGR, a large and consistent-direction gap, not a rounding artifact. Cross-checking against PWG (%) instead (Table 1: Control 5289 +/- 625.18%, T1 6025.1 +/- 697.88%) via W2=W1*(1+PWG/100) gives Control ~77.6 g and T1 ~88.2 g — closer to (within ~20-30% of) the Discussion’s stated final weights than the SGR-derived values are, but still not an exact match. No single input can be identified as the transcription error; SGR, PWG and the stated final weight are not mutually consistent under the paper’s own formula. Recomputed values above are evidence only and are NOT entered in any cell. Table 1’s SGR value (this row) and the Discussion-stated Fish size final (this row, T1 only) are each recorded as literally printed, since neither has a competing figure for the SAME cell — only the cross-formula consistency fails. Affects: interpretation of the paper’s central ‘enhanced growth’ claim (title), which rests on SGR/PWG comparisons across T1-T3 and Control. T2 and T3 have no stated final body weight anywhere in the paper to cross-check against (Fish size final recorded NR for those two rows), so this discrepancy cannot be independently confirmed for them, but the same doubt reasonably extends to their SGR values too, given T1’s and Control’s SGR both fail the check in the same direction and magnitude. | WARN-MINOR Table 1 FCR, Control row prints ‘1.61 +/- 0.0.03a’ (extra decimal point). Resolved to 0.03 via Discussion p.5, which independently restates ‘the body weight and FCR were 56.03 +/- 2.24 and 1.61 +/- 0.03 respectively’ for Control — two independent statements of the same figure agree once the typo is corrected. Recorded 1.61 +/- 0.03. | WARN-MINOR Table 2 yield, T3 prints ‘286.89 +/- 6..44b’ (double decimal point, clearly a single stray keystroke). No second source restates this figure; corrected to 6.44 as the only sensible reading (no plausible alternative digit sequence). Recorded 286.89 +/- 6.44. | WARN-MINOR Table 4 Sodium, T2 prints ‘96.06 +/- .98a’ (missing leading zero). Recorded 0.98 (NO COLUMN — water Na has no dedicated column; see NO COLUMN block). | WARN-CHECK Days Plant after transplant, basis unclear (Methods 2.1 vs 2.3, p.2-3). Methods 2.1 states ‘The experiment was conducted in a BFT-AQP system for 120 days’ (fish-stocking-anchored framing, matches Table 1’s ‘body weight…obtained during 120 days culture period’). Methods 2.3 states bell pepper seedlings were grown 20 days in pots before being transferred to the aquaponic bed, then ‘At the end of the experimental period of 120 days, all the plants were harvested’ — this sentence does not clarify whether the pepper’s own 120-day clock starts at its own transplant date (which would then run to day 140 of the fish’s stocking-anchored clock) or whether pepper was transplanted at the same day-0 as fish stocking (making the two 120-day periods co-terminal). Fish were also acclimatized 25 days before stocking (Methods 2.2), so the paper’s overall timeline has at least two candidate day-0 points (pepper transplant vs. fish stocking) that are never explicitly synchronized. Recorded 120 (days), taking Methods 2.3’s direct statement (‘experimental period of 120 days, all plants harvested’) as the basis, since it is the only sentence that ties a duration figure directly to plant harvest. Affects: comparability of this paper’s plant-cycle length against other vault papers that state transplant-to-harvest duration unambiguously. Added to REVIEW.md by the batch merge step. | NO COLUMN: fish count stocking density as stated by the paper (150 no.m-3 Control/T1, 250 no.m-3 T2, 350 no.m-3 T3) — kg/m3 form used in the Initial Stock density cell instead (Table 1’s own ‘Initial biomass (kg/m3)’ row), per SCHEMA.md’s unit requirement; the no./m3 figures are the paper’s primary treatment-defining variable and are preserved here for reference. | NOT DERIVED, left NR: Total Feed (kg) (FCR and PWG both given, but total feed intake in kg is never stated as a figure; back-calculating from FCR x biomass gain would be derivation); Fish biomass created (kg) (only initial/final biomass in kg/m3 given, Table 1 — converting to kg total would require multiplying by system water volume, not stated as a single figure, so this is derivation); Fish weight gain (g) (Discussion states final body weight for T1/Control only, Table 1 gives PWG as a percentage — subtracting initial from final weight to get a gram figure would be derivation even though trivially computable for T1); Fish size final for T2, T3 (no individual final body weight stated anywhere for these two treatments, only PWG% and biomass kg/m3); Water volume in the system as a single total (fish tank capacity 250 L stated, plant bed water volume never separately given, and Methods never states a summed system total); Daily Water exchange rate (water level topped up weekly to offset losses, no % figure given); Average room Temperature (only water temperature given, Table 4; no separate ambient/room air temperature reported); Lat/Long (Mumbai, India named as the institutional site — ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Education — but no coordinates stated in the paper; not filled from outside knowledge per the prime directive). | NO COLUMN (full figures preserved here, no dedicated trials.csv column): SGR formula and PWG/PER/final-biomass dataset (see WARN-MATERIAL above and CONTROL baseline note); PWG (%) for T1 6025.1 +/- 697.88, T2 5841.6 +/- 753.94, T3 3111.8 +/- 660.65 (Control 5289 +/- 625.18, see baseline note); PER for T1 2.91 +/- 0.05, T2 2.18 +/- 0.04, T3 1.72 +/- 0.07 (Control 2.31 +/- 0.08); Final biomass (kg/m3) T1 11.03 +/- 1.12, T2 14.16 +/- 0.35, T3 16.43 +/- 1.36 (Control 8.40 +/- 0.85); fish count stocking density (no./m3): 150 (Control/T1), 250 (T2), 350 (T3); Leaf fresh weight (g/plant, Table 3) T1 28.46 +/- 2.42, T2 31.60 +/- 10.17, T3 26.40 +/- 4.53 (Control 5.40 +/- 1.45); Root fresh weight (g/plant, Table 3) T1 16.1 +/- 0.66, T2 9.50 +/- 1.17, T3 15.56 +/- 2.19 (Control 7.70 +/- 0.77); water Phosphate (mg/L, Table 4) T1 8.16 +/- 0.15, T2 8.4 +/- 0.14, T3 9.58 +/- 0.52 (Control 8.86 +/- 0.14); water Turbidity (NTU) T1 181.92 +/- 19.53, T2 294.46 +/- 33.08, T3 312.76 +/- 24.52 (Control 7.72 +/- 0.33); Settling solids/floc volume (mL/L) T1 18.76 +/- 1.56, T2 28.07 +/- 2.72, T3 27.15 +/- 2.32 (Control 0.00); water Sodium (mg/L) T1 71.66 +/- 5.51, T2 96.06 +/- 0.98, T3 100.67 +/- 2.51 (Control 77.60 +/- 5.00, all WARN-MINOR-corrected per above); water Potassium (mg/L) T1 32.96 +/- 1.25, T2 43.26 +/- 2.34, T3 35.73 +/- 1.35 (Control 24.60 +/- 3.23); water Calcium (mg/L) T1 632.30 +/- 70.23, T2 866.27 +/- 66.91, T3 933.20 +/- 22.45 (Control 513.73 +/- 44.11); fish stress biomarkers (Table 5, no dedicated schema columns) — serum cortisol (ng/mL): T1 45.66 +/- 0.88c, T2 56.33 +/- 0.88b, T3 65.00 +/- 2.64a (Control 67.00 +/- 1.52a); serum glucose (mg/dL): T1 88.36 +/- 7.17a, T2 96.11 +/- 7.28a, T3 107.92 +/- 9.06a (Control 98.29 +/- 9.24a, all ns); catalase (U/mg protein): T1 2.97 +/- 0.85b, T2 3.73 +/- 0.76b, T3 4.47 +/- 0.90b (Control 8.72 +/- 1.02a); superoxide dismutase (U/mg protein): T1 37.64 +/- 3.40c, T2 58.65 +/- 4.63b, T3 70.00 +/- 4.72ab (Control 82.59 +/- 4.04a). Chl-a assay method: 80% acetone extraction, 1g leaf tissue, absorbance at 630/645/665nm, Chl-a = 11.6xA665 - 0.14xA630 - 1.31xA645 (Methods 2.3, Kamble et al. 2015). | PDF quality: clean text layer throughout (8 pages, standard two-column Elsevier typesetting), fully extractable via PyMuPDF, no OCR needed. Table 1/2/3/4/5 column alignment survives text extraction reasonably well but several cells show stray/duplicated decimal points and a missing leading zero (see WARN-MINOR entries above) — these read as source-PDF typesetting artifacts (values misprinted in the original), not extraction errors, since the same digit sequences appear identically when the PDF is viewed directly. Table 5’s last row (T3 serum glucose, ‘107.92 +/- 9.06’ with superscript ‘a’) is split across two lines by the PDF’s column-wrap; reassembled here as ‘107.92 +/- 9.06(a)’, not a numeric issue.

saseendranEnhancedGrowthResponse2021-T2

Fish

Field	Value
Fish	GIFT strain of tilapia (Genetically Improved Farmed Tilapia; n=1500 obtained from Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Aquaculture, Andhra Pradesh, India)
Initial Stock density	0.35 +/- 0.00
FCR	1.50 +/- 0.14
SGR	1.79 +/- 0.01
Protein	30
% of body weight	2
Fish size initial	1.44 +/- 0.12
Feed routine	Fed twice daily (10:00 and 17:00 hrs); ration recalculated fortnightly against sampled biomass (fish sampled every 15 days, n=15/tank, Methods 2.2)
Feed regime	Commercial floating pellet feed, 30% crude protein, fed at 2% of total stocked biomass/day (Methods 2.2)
Fish survival rate	100
Fish trial duration (days)	120

Water

Field	Value
Water recycle	8.33
Water volume in the system	250 (fish tank capacity only; plant bed water volume not separately stated)
Aq pH	7.40 +/- 0.04
Dissolved Oxigen	4.37 +/- 0.35
Water temperature	29.38 +/- 0.83
TAN / NH4-N	0.29 +/- 0.01
NO2-N	0.23 +/- 0.01
NO3-N	3.3 +/- 0.32

Plant

Field	Value
Plant	Bell pepper (Capsicum annum L.)
Details	Seedlings grown 20 days in pots (soil medium), detached and roots washed free of soil, then transferred bare-root to gravel aquaponic bed at mean height 10.17 +/- 0.18 cm (Methods 2.3); 12 plants/m2, constant across all treatments and control; harvested at end of 120-day experimental period
Days Plant after transplant	120
Plants/m2	12
Plant height	72.76 +/- 4.49
Plant fresh weight	297.38 +/- 3.71

System & Setup

Field	Value
System type	Media-based (gravel) recirculating aquaponic unit, flood-and-drain (ebb-flow) via bell siphon; biofloc-integrated (BFT-AQP) in T1-T3, absent in the paper’s own AQP-only Control (see Experimental Remarks)
Media Details	Gravel medium, plant bed 60x42x30cm (0.25 m2 surface area/unit); circular fish tank 250 L capacity; submersible pump 0.02 hp; water flow fish tank -> plant bed 500 L/hr (UNIT CONVERSION ONLY: 500 L/hr = 8.33 L/min); pump cycled 20 min on/40 min off hourly via Crouzet TMR 48L cyclic timer; PVC pipework 12.7mm; perforated PVC (5-inch) + geotextile filtration unit in fish tank to retain floc (Methods 2.1)
Air supplement	Y (Air stones + air pump (60W, 0.038 MPa) per BFT tank, intensively aerated to maintain floc suspension and O2 supply (Methods 2.3); Fig. 1 depicts aeration (item h) as part of the general single-unit design — Control’s aeration status is UNCLEAR (see Extraction notes))
Equipment	Circular fish tank (250 L) with gravel-medium plant bed (0.25 m2), flood-and-drain via bell siphon; submersible pump (0.02 hp); Crouzet TMR 48L cyclic timer; air pump (60W, 0.038 MPa) + air stones (BFT tanks, Methods 2.3); UV-VIS spectrophotometer (analytical technologies; water phosphate, Methods 2.4); flame photometer (Elico CL 378, Hyderabad; water Na/K/Ca, Methods 2.4); nepheloturbidimeter (turbidimeter+AQ4500); Imhoff cone (settling solids/floc volume); Cortisol EIA Kit 9 (Cayman Chemicals; serum cortisol); glucose kit (Transasia Bio-Medicals, Cat No. 120235; serum glucose); UV spectrophotometer (SOD assay, 480nm; CAT assay, 240nm)
Control Parameters	Water pump cycle 20 min on/40 min off hourly; flow rate 500 L/hr fish tank->plant bed; feeding 2x/day (10:00, 17:00 hrs) at 2% stocked biomass/day, adjusted fortnightly per 15-day growth sampling; biofloc C:N ratio 15:1, wheat flour (50% carbon/g) added regularly as carbon source (Methods 2.3, following Hargreaves 2013 and Avnimelech 1999); water level topped up weekly to offset evaporation/transpiration/handling loss; semi-translucent roofed shed to prevent direct sunlight (Methods 2.1)
Combination	GIFT tilapia (biofloc-integrated aquaponics, BFT-AQP) and bell pepper (Capsicum annum L.) at three fish stocking densities; this row = T2 (250 no.m-3, BFT-AQP) vs shared AQP-only Control (150 no.m-3, no biofloc, NOT density-matched)

Site

Field	Value
Region	South Asia
Country	India

Results & Statistics

Field	Value
Measured Unit	g/plant (bell pepper fruit yield, Table 2); %/day (SGR); kg/m3 (fish biomass, Initial Stock density); mg/L (water quality, Table 4); cm (plant height); ug/L (chlorophyll-a, Table 3, see plant.csv)
Statistic Details	One-way ANOVA + Duncan’s multiple range test (p<0.05) for growth, water quality, plant growth, and stress parameters; SPSS-16.0 (Methods 2.6)
Statistically analysed	Y
Replicates (n)	3
AP	297.38

Experimental Remarks: TRIAL DEFINITION: T2 = middle of three biofloc stocking densities, not density-matched to Control, biofloc-integrated aquaponics (BFT-AQP), GIFT tilapia at 250 no.m-3 stocking density, 120-day trial, triplicate independent aquaponic units (Methods 2.1: ‘completely randomised design (CRD) with three treatments…and a control…all the treatments and control was in triplicates’). Paired reference in the paper = the shared AQP-only Control (150 no.m-3, no biofloc, also triplicate) — but Control is itself an aquaponic system (has fish + plant bed), not a hydroponic-only (no-fish) treatment, so it does NOT fit this schema’s HYD column, which specifically denotes a no-fish hydroponic control. HYD is recorded NA throughout this paper (no hydroponic-only arm was ever run) and Control’s full dataset is preserved in the CONTROL baseline note below instead of in the HYD-labelled cells, to avoid misrepresenting an aquaponic-without-biofloc system as a hydroponic one. Only T1 is density-matched to Control (both 150 no.m-3); T2 and T3 have no density-matched non-biofloc comparator in this paper. | CONTROL (AQP-only, no biofloc, 150 no.m-3, shared across all three trials, Tables 1-5): SGR 1.84 +/- 0.06 %/day; PWG 5289 +/- 625.18% (NO COLUMN — percent weight gain, no dedicated column); FCR 1.61 +/- 0.03 (Table 1 misprints ‘1.61 +/- 0.0.03a’; corrected via Discussion p.5 restatement ‘1.61 +/- 0.03’, WARN-MINOR, see below); PER 2.31 +/- 0.08 (NO COLUMN — protein efficiency ratio, no dedicated column); Initial biomass 0.21 +/- 0.00 kg/m3; Final biomass 8.40 +/- 0.85 kg/m3 (NO COLUMN — no ‘final stock density’ column exists); Survival 100%; Final individual body weight 56.03 +/- 2.24 g (Discussion p.5 only, not tabulated — see WARN-MATERIAL below); Bell pepper yield 98.85 +/- 1.66 g/plant; Plant height 54.70 +/- 3.03 cm; Leaf fresh weight 5.40 +/- 1.45 g/plant (NO COLUMN); Root fresh weight 7.70 +/- 0.77 g/plant (NO COLUMN); Chlorophyll a 12.47 +/- 1.91 ug/L (recorded in plant.csv, System=Control); Water: DO 6.54 +/- 0.05 mg/L, pH 7.20 +/- 0.04, Temp 29.40 +/- 0.94 C, TAN 0.32 +/- 0.02 mg/L, NO2-N 0.28 +/- 0.03 mg/L, NO3-N 5.26 +/- 0.49 mg/L, Phosphate 8.86 +/- 0.14 mg/L (NO COLUMN), Turbidity 7.72 +/- 0.33 NTU (NO COLUMN), Settling solids 0.00 mL/L (NO COLUMN), Na 77.60 +/- 5.00 mg/L (NO COLUMN), K(water) 24.60 +/- 3.23 mg/L (NO COLUMN), Ca 513.73 +/- 44.11 mg/L (NO COLUMN); Stress: serum cortisol 67.00 +/- 1.52 ng/mL, serum glucose 98.29 +/- 9.24 mg/dL, catalase 8.72 +/- 1.02 U/mg protein, SOD 82.59 +/- 4.04 U/mg protein (all NO COLUMN — no fish stress-biomarker columns exist in this schema). | WARN-MINOR Table 1 FCR, Control row prints ‘1.61 +/- 0.0.03a’ (extra decimal point). Resolved to 0.03 via Discussion p.5, which independently restates ‘the body weight and FCR were 56.03 +/- 2.24 and 1.61 +/- 0.03 respectively’ for Control — two independent statements of the same figure agree once the typo is corrected. Recorded 1.61 +/- 0.03. | WARN-MINOR Table 2 yield, T3 prints ‘286.89 +/- 6..44b’ (double decimal point, clearly a single stray keystroke). No second source restates this figure; corrected to 6.44 as the only sensible reading (no plausible alternative digit sequence). Recorded 286.89 +/- 6.44. | WARN-MINOR Table 4 Sodium, T2 prints ‘96.06 +/- .98a’ (missing leading zero). Recorded 0.98 (NO COLUMN — water Na has no dedicated column; see NO COLUMN block). | WARN-CHECK Days Plant after transplant, basis unclear (Methods 2.1 vs 2.3, p.2-3). Methods 2.1 states ‘The experiment was conducted in a BFT-AQP system for 120 days’ (fish-stocking-anchored framing, matches Table 1’s ‘body weight…obtained during 120 days culture period’). Methods 2.3 states bell pepper seedlings were grown 20 days in pots before being transferred to the aquaponic bed, then ‘At the end of the experimental period of 120 days, all the plants were harvested’ — this sentence does not clarify whether the pepper’s own 120-day clock starts at its own transplant date (which would then run to day 140 of the fish’s stocking-anchored clock) or whether pepper was transplanted at the same day-0 as fish stocking (making the two 120-day periods co-terminal). Fish were also acclimatized 25 days before stocking (Methods 2.2), so the paper’s overall timeline has at least two candidate day-0 points (pepper transplant vs. fish stocking) that are never explicitly synchronized. Recorded 120 (days), taking Methods 2.3’s direct statement (‘experimental period of 120 days, all plants harvested’) as the basis, since it is the only sentence that ties a duration figure directly to plant harvest. Affects: comparability of this paper’s plant-cycle length against other vault papers that state transplant-to-harvest duration unambiguously. Added to REVIEW.md by the batch merge step. | WARN-MATERIAL note (cross-reference): see -T1 Experimental Remarks for the SGR-vs-final-body-weight cross-check failure identified for T1/Control; T2 has no stated final body weight to independently confirm the same check, but the same doubt reasonably extends to T2’s SGR value (1.79 +/- 0.01). | NO COLUMN: fish count stocking density as stated by the paper (150 no.m-3 Control/T1, 250 no.m-3 T2, 350 no.m-3 T3) — kg/m3 form used in the Initial Stock density cell instead (Table 1’s own ‘Initial biomass (kg/m3)’ row), per SCHEMA.md’s unit requirement; the no./m3 figures are the paper’s primary treatment-defining variable and are preserved here for reference. | NOT DERIVED, left NR: Total Feed (kg) (FCR and PWG both given, but total feed intake in kg is never stated as a figure; back-calculating from FCR x biomass gain would be derivation); Fish biomass created (kg) (only initial/final biomass in kg/m3 given, Table 1 — converting to kg total would require multiplying by system water volume, not stated as a single figure, so this is derivation); Fish weight gain (g) (Discussion states final body weight for T1/Control only, Table 1 gives PWG as a percentage — subtracting initial from final weight to get a gram figure would be derivation even though trivially computable for T1); Fish size final for T2, T3 (no individual final body weight stated anywhere for these two treatments, only PWG% and biomass kg/m3); Water volume in the system as a single total (fish tank capacity 250 L stated, plant bed water volume never separately given, and Methods never states a summed system total); Daily Water exchange rate (water level topped up weekly to offset losses, no % figure given); Average room Temperature (only water temperature given, Table 4; no separate ambient/room air temperature reported); Lat/Long (Mumbai, India named as the institutional site — ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Education — but no coordinates stated in the paper; not filled from outside knowledge per the prime directive). | NO COLUMN (full figures preserved here, no dedicated trials.csv column): SGR formula and PWG/PER/final-biomass dataset (see WARN-MATERIAL above and CONTROL baseline note); PWG (%) for T1 6025.1 +/- 697.88, T2 5841.6 +/- 753.94, T3 3111.8 +/- 660.65 (Control 5289 +/- 625.18, see baseline note); PER for T1 2.91 +/- 0.05, T2 2.18 +/- 0.04, T3 1.72 +/- 0.07 (Control 2.31 +/- 0.08); Final biomass (kg/m3) T1 11.03 +/- 1.12, T2 14.16 +/- 0.35, T3 16.43 +/- 1.36 (Control 8.40 +/- 0.85); fish count stocking density (no./m3): 150 (Control/T1), 250 (T2), 350 (T3); Leaf fresh weight (g/plant, Table 3) T1 28.46 +/- 2.42, T2 31.60 +/- 10.17, T3 26.40 +/- 4.53 (Control 5.40 +/- 1.45); Root fresh weight (g/plant, Table 3) T1 16.1 +/- 0.66, T2 9.50 +/- 1.17, T3 15.56 +/- 2.19 (Control 7.70 +/- 0.77); water Phosphate (mg/L, Table 4) T1 8.16 +/- 0.15, T2 8.4 +/- 0.14, T3 9.58 +/- 0.52 (Control 8.86 +/- 0.14); water Turbidity (NTU) T1 181.92 +/- 19.53, T2 294.46 +/- 33.08, T3 312.76 +/- 24.52 (Control 7.72 +/- 0.33); Settling solids/floc volume (mL/L) T1 18.76 +/- 1.56, T2 28.07 +/- 2.72, T3 27.15 +/- 2.32 (Control 0.00); water Sodium (mg/L) T1 71.66 +/- 5.51, T2 96.06 +/- 0.98, T3 100.67 +/- 2.51 (Control 77.60 +/- 5.00, all WARN-MINOR-corrected per above); water Potassium (mg/L) T1 32.96 +/- 1.25, T2 43.26 +/- 2.34, T3 35.73 +/- 1.35 (Control 24.60 +/- 3.23); water Calcium (mg/L) T1 632.30 +/- 70.23, T2 866.27 +/- 66.91, T3 933.20 +/- 22.45 (Control 513.73 +/- 44.11); fish stress biomarkers (Table 5, no dedicated schema columns) — serum cortisol (ng/mL): T1 45.66 +/- 0.88c, T2 56.33 +/- 0.88b, T3 65.00 +/- 2.64a (Control 67.00 +/- 1.52a); serum glucose (mg/dL): T1 88.36 +/- 7.17a, T2 96.11 +/- 7.28a, T3 107.92 +/- 9.06a (Control 98.29 +/- 9.24a, all ns); catalase (U/mg protein): T1 2.97 +/- 0.85b, T2 3.73 +/- 0.76b, T3 4.47 +/- 0.90b (Control 8.72 +/- 1.02a); superoxide dismutase (U/mg protein): T1 37.64 +/- 3.40c, T2 58.65 +/- 4.63b, T3 70.00 +/- 4.72ab (Control 82.59 +/- 4.04a). Chl-a assay method: 80% acetone extraction, 1g leaf tissue, absorbance at 630/645/665nm, Chl-a = 11.6xA665 - 0.14xA630 - 1.31xA645 (Methods 2.3, Kamble et al. 2015). | PDF quality: clean text layer throughout (8 pages, standard two-column Elsevier typesetting), fully extractable via PyMuPDF, no OCR needed. Table 1/2/3/4/5 column alignment survives text extraction reasonably well but several cells show stray/duplicated decimal points and a missing leading zero (see WARN-MINOR entries above) — these read as source-PDF typesetting artifacts (values misprinted in the original), not extraction errors, since the same digit sequences appear identically when the PDF is viewed directly. Table 5’s last row (T3 serum glucose, ‘107.92 +/- 9.06’ with superscript ‘a’) is split across two lines by the PDF’s column-wrap; reassembled here as ‘107.92 +/- 9.06(a)’, not a numeric issue.

saseendranEnhancedGrowthResponse2021-T3

Fish

Field	Value
Fish	GIFT strain of tilapia (Genetically Improved Farmed Tilapia; n=1500 obtained from Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Aquaculture, Andhra Pradesh, India)
Initial Stock density	0.49 +/- 0.00
FCR	1.63 +/- 0.02
SGR	1.60 +/- 0.09
Protein	30
% of body weight	2
Fish size initial	1.44 +/- 0.12
Feed routine	Fed twice daily (10:00 and 17:00 hrs); ration recalculated fortnightly against sampled biomass (fish sampled every 15 days, n=15/tank, Methods 2.2)
Feed regime	Commercial floating pellet feed, 30% crude protein, fed at 2% of total stocked biomass/day (Methods 2.2)
Fish survival rate	100
Fish trial duration (days)	120

Water

Field	Value
Water recycle	8.33
Water volume in the system	250 (fish tank capacity only; plant bed water volume not separately stated)
Aq pH	7.40 +/- 0.07
Dissolved Oxigen	4.53 +/- 0.19
Water temperature	29.62 +/- 0.81
TAN / NH4-N	0.36 +/- 0.02
NO2-N	0.22 +/- 0.01
NO3-N	3.42 +/- 0.41

Plant

Field	Value
Plant	Bell pepper (Capsicum annum L.)
Details	Seedlings grown 20 days in pots (soil medium), detached and roots washed free of soil, then transferred bare-root to gravel aquaponic bed at mean height 10.17 +/- 0.18 cm (Methods 2.3); 12 plants/m2, constant across all treatments and control; harvested at end of 120-day experimental period
Days Plant after transplant	120
Plants/m2	12
Plant height	62.90 +/- 3.26
Plant fresh weight	286.89 +/- 6.44

System & Setup

Field	Value
System type	Media-based (gravel) recirculating aquaponic unit, flood-and-drain (ebb-flow) via bell siphon; biofloc-integrated (BFT-AQP) in T1-T3, absent in the paper’s own AQP-only Control (see Experimental Remarks)
Media Details	Gravel medium, plant bed 60x42x30cm (0.25 m2 surface area/unit); circular fish tank 250 L capacity; submersible pump 0.02 hp; water flow fish tank -> plant bed 500 L/hr (UNIT CONVERSION ONLY: 500 L/hr = 8.33 L/min); pump cycled 20 min on/40 min off hourly via Crouzet TMR 48L cyclic timer; PVC pipework 12.7mm; perforated PVC (5-inch) + geotextile filtration unit in fish tank to retain floc (Methods 2.1)
Air supplement	Y (Air stones + air pump (60W, 0.038 MPa) per BFT tank, intensively aerated to maintain floc suspension and O2 supply (Methods 2.3); Fig. 1 depicts aeration (item h) as part of the general single-unit design — Control’s aeration status is UNCLEAR (see Extraction notes))
Equipment	Circular fish tank (250 L) with gravel-medium plant bed (0.25 m2), flood-and-drain via bell siphon; submersible pump (0.02 hp); Crouzet TMR 48L cyclic timer; air pump (60W, 0.038 MPa) + air stones (BFT tanks, Methods 2.3); UV-VIS spectrophotometer (analytical technologies; water phosphate, Methods 2.4); flame photometer (Elico CL 378, Hyderabad; water Na/K/Ca, Methods 2.4); nepheloturbidimeter (turbidimeter+AQ4500); Imhoff cone (settling solids/floc volume); Cortisol EIA Kit 9 (Cayman Chemicals; serum cortisol); glucose kit (Transasia Bio-Medicals, Cat No. 120235; serum glucose); UV spectrophotometer (SOD assay, 480nm; CAT assay, 240nm)
Control Parameters	Water pump cycle 20 min on/40 min off hourly; flow rate 500 L/hr fish tank->plant bed; feeding 2x/day (10:00, 17:00 hrs) at 2% stocked biomass/day, adjusted fortnightly per 15-day growth sampling; biofloc C:N ratio 15:1, wheat flour (50% carbon/g) added regularly as carbon source (Methods 2.3, following Hargreaves 2013 and Avnimelech 1999); water level topped up weekly to offset evaporation/transpiration/handling loss; semi-translucent roofed shed to prevent direct sunlight (Methods 2.1)
Combination	GIFT tilapia (biofloc-integrated aquaponics, BFT-AQP) and bell pepper (Capsicum annum L.) at three fish stocking densities; this row = T3 (350 no.m-3, BFT-AQP) vs shared AQP-only Control (150 no.m-3, no biofloc, NOT density-matched)

Site

Field	Value
Region	South Asia
Country	India

Results & Statistics

Field	Value
Measured Unit	g/plant (bell pepper fruit yield, Table 2); %/day (SGR); kg/m3 (fish biomass, Initial Stock density); mg/L (water quality, Table 4); cm (plant height); ug/L (chlorophyll-a, Table 3, see plant.csv)
Statistic Details	One-way ANOVA + Duncan’s multiple range test (p<0.05) for growth, water quality, plant growth, and stress parameters; SPSS-16.0 (Methods 2.6)
Statistically analysed	Y
Replicates (n)	3
AP	286.89

Experimental Remarks: TRIAL DEFINITION: T3 = highest of three biofloc stocking densities, not density-matched to Control, biofloc-integrated aquaponics (BFT-AQP), GIFT tilapia at 350 no.m-3 stocking density, 120-day trial, triplicate independent aquaponic units (Methods 2.1: ‘completely randomised design (CRD) with three treatments…and a control…all the treatments and control was in triplicates’). Paired reference in the paper = the shared AQP-only Control (150 no.m-3, no biofloc, also triplicate) — but Control is itself an aquaponic system (has fish + plant bed), not a hydroponic-only (no-fish) treatment, so it does NOT fit this schema’s HYD column, which specifically denotes a no-fish hydroponic control. HYD is recorded NA throughout this paper (no hydroponic-only arm was ever run) and Control’s full dataset is preserved in the CONTROL baseline note below instead of in the HYD-labelled cells, to avoid misrepresenting an aquaponic-without-biofloc system as a hydroponic one. Only T1 is density-matched to Control (both 150 no.m-3); T2 and T3 have no density-matched non-biofloc comparator in this paper. | CONTROL (AQP-only, no biofloc, 150 no.m-3, shared across all three trials, Tables 1-5): SGR 1.84 +/- 0.06 %/day; PWG 5289 +/- 625.18% (NO COLUMN — percent weight gain, no dedicated column); FCR 1.61 +/- 0.03 (Table 1 misprints ‘1.61 +/- 0.0.03a’; corrected via Discussion p.5 restatement ‘1.61 +/- 0.03’, WARN-MINOR, see below); PER 2.31 +/- 0.08 (NO COLUMN — protein efficiency ratio, no dedicated column); Initial biomass 0.21 +/- 0.00 kg/m3; Final biomass 8.40 +/- 0.85 kg/m3 (NO COLUMN — no ‘final stock density’ column exists); Survival 100%; Final individual body weight 56.03 +/- 2.24 g (Discussion p.5 only, not tabulated — see WARN-MATERIAL below); Bell pepper yield 98.85 +/- 1.66 g/plant; Plant height 54.70 +/- 3.03 cm; Leaf fresh weight 5.40 +/- 1.45 g/plant (NO COLUMN); Root fresh weight 7.70 +/- 0.77 g/plant (NO COLUMN); Chlorophyll a 12.47 +/- 1.91 ug/L (recorded in plant.csv, System=Control); Water: DO 6.54 +/- 0.05 mg/L, pH 7.20 +/- 0.04, Temp 29.40 +/- 0.94 C, TAN 0.32 +/- 0.02 mg/L, NO2-N 0.28 +/- 0.03 mg/L, NO3-N 5.26 +/- 0.49 mg/L, Phosphate 8.86 +/- 0.14 mg/L (NO COLUMN), Turbidity 7.72 +/- 0.33 NTU (NO COLUMN), Settling solids 0.00 mL/L (NO COLUMN), Na 77.60 +/- 5.00 mg/L (NO COLUMN), K(water) 24.60 +/- 3.23 mg/L (NO COLUMN), Ca 513.73 +/- 44.11 mg/L (NO COLUMN); Stress: serum cortisol 67.00 +/- 1.52 ng/mL, serum glucose 98.29 +/- 9.24 mg/dL, catalase 8.72 +/- 1.02 U/mg protein, SOD 82.59 +/- 4.04 U/mg protein (all NO COLUMN — no fish stress-biomarker columns exist in this schema). | WARN-MINOR Table 1 FCR, Control row prints ‘1.61 +/- 0.0.03a’ (extra decimal point). Resolved to 0.03 via Discussion p.5, which independently restates ‘the body weight and FCR were 56.03 +/- 2.24 and 1.61 +/- 0.03 respectively’ for Control — two independent statements of the same figure agree once the typo is corrected. Recorded 1.61 +/- 0.03. | WARN-MINOR Table 2 yield, T3 prints ‘286.89 +/- 6..44b’ (double decimal point, clearly a single stray keystroke). No second source restates this figure; corrected to 6.44 as the only sensible reading (no plausible alternative digit sequence). Recorded 286.89 +/- 6.44. | WARN-MINOR Table 4 Sodium, T2 prints ‘96.06 +/- .98a’ (missing leading zero). Recorded 0.98 (NO COLUMN — water Na has no dedicated column; see NO COLUMN block). | WARN-CHECK Days Plant after transplant, basis unclear (Methods 2.1 vs 2.3, p.2-3). Methods 2.1 states ‘The experiment was conducted in a BFT-AQP system for 120 days’ (fish-stocking-anchored framing, matches Table 1’s ‘body weight…obtained during 120 days culture period’). Methods 2.3 states bell pepper seedlings were grown 20 days in pots before being transferred to the aquaponic bed, then ‘At the end of the experimental period of 120 days, all the plants were harvested’ — this sentence does not clarify whether the pepper’s own 120-day clock starts at its own transplant date (which would then run to day 140 of the fish’s stocking-anchored clock) or whether pepper was transplanted at the same day-0 as fish stocking (making the two 120-day periods co-terminal). Fish were also acclimatized 25 days before stocking (Methods 2.2), so the paper’s overall timeline has at least two candidate day-0 points (pepper transplant vs. fish stocking) that are never explicitly synchronized. Recorded 120 (days), taking Methods 2.3’s direct statement (‘experimental period of 120 days, all plants harvested’) as the basis, since it is the only sentence that ties a duration figure directly to plant harvest. Affects: comparability of this paper’s plant-cycle length against other vault papers that state transplant-to-harvest duration unambiguously. Added to REVIEW.md by the batch merge step. | WARN-MATERIAL note (cross-reference): see -T1 Experimental Remarks for the SGR-vs-final-body-weight cross-check failure identified for T1/Control; T3 has no stated final body weight to independently confirm the same check, but the same doubt reasonably extends to T3’s SGR value (1.60 +/- 0.09). | NO COLUMN: fish count stocking density as stated by the paper (150 no.m-3 Control/T1, 250 no.m-3 T2, 350 no.m-3 T3) — kg/m3 form used in the Initial Stock density cell instead (Table 1’s own ‘Initial biomass (kg/m3)’ row), per SCHEMA.md’s unit requirement; the no./m3 figures are the paper’s primary treatment-defining variable and are preserved here for reference. | NOT DERIVED, left NR: Total Feed (kg) (FCR and PWG both given, but total feed intake in kg is never stated as a figure; back-calculating from FCR x biomass gain would be derivation); Fish biomass created (kg) (only initial/final biomass in kg/m3 given, Table 1 — converting to kg total would require multiplying by system water volume, not stated as a single figure, so this is derivation); Fish weight gain (g) (Discussion states final body weight for T1/Control only, Table 1 gives PWG as a percentage — subtracting initial from final weight to get a gram figure would be derivation even though trivially computable for T1); Fish size final for T2, T3 (no individual final body weight stated anywhere for these two treatments, only PWG% and biomass kg/m3); Water volume in the system as a single total (fish tank capacity 250 L stated, plant bed water volume never separately given, and Methods never states a summed system total); Daily Water exchange rate (water level topped up weekly to offset losses, no % figure given); Average room Temperature (only water temperature given, Table 4; no separate ambient/room air temperature reported); Lat/Long (Mumbai, India named as the institutional site — ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Education — but no coordinates stated in the paper; not filled from outside knowledge per the prime directive). | NO COLUMN (full figures preserved here, no dedicated trials.csv column): SGR formula and PWG/PER/final-biomass dataset (see WARN-MATERIAL above and CONTROL baseline note); PWG (%) for T1 6025.1 +/- 697.88, T2 5841.6 +/- 753.94, T3 3111.8 +/- 660.65 (Control 5289 +/- 625.18, see baseline note); PER for T1 2.91 +/- 0.05, T2 2.18 +/- 0.04, T3 1.72 +/- 0.07 (Control 2.31 +/- 0.08); Final biomass (kg/m3) T1 11.03 +/- 1.12, T2 14.16 +/- 0.35, T3 16.43 +/- 1.36 (Control 8.40 +/- 0.85); fish count stocking density (no./m3): 150 (Control/T1), 250 (T2), 350 (T3); Leaf fresh weight (g/plant, Table 3) T1 28.46 +/- 2.42, T2 31.60 +/- 10.17, T3 26.40 +/- 4.53 (Control 5.40 +/- 1.45); Root fresh weight (g/plant, Table 3) T1 16.1 +/- 0.66, T2 9.50 +/- 1.17, T3 15.56 +/- 2.19 (Control 7.70 +/- 0.77); water Phosphate (mg/L, Table 4) T1 8.16 +/- 0.15, T2 8.4 +/- 0.14, T3 9.58 +/- 0.52 (Control 8.86 +/- 0.14); water Turbidity (NTU) T1 181.92 +/- 19.53, T2 294.46 +/- 33.08, T3 312.76 +/- 24.52 (Control 7.72 +/- 0.33); Settling solids/floc volume (mL/L) T1 18.76 +/- 1.56, T2 28.07 +/- 2.72, T3 27.15 +/- 2.32 (Control 0.00); water Sodium (mg/L) T1 71.66 +/- 5.51, T2 96.06 +/- 0.98, T3 100.67 +/- 2.51 (Control 77.60 +/- 5.00, all WARN-MINOR-corrected per above); water Potassium (mg/L) T1 32.96 +/- 1.25, T2 43.26 +/- 2.34, T3 35.73 +/- 1.35 (Control 24.60 +/- 3.23); water Calcium (mg/L) T1 632.30 +/- 70.23, T2 866.27 +/- 66.91, T3 933.20 +/- 22.45 (Control 513.73 +/- 44.11); fish stress biomarkers (Table 5, no dedicated schema columns) — serum cortisol (ng/mL): T1 45.66 +/- 0.88c, T2 56.33 +/- 0.88b, T3 65.00 +/- 2.64a (Control 67.00 +/- 1.52a); serum glucose (mg/dL): T1 88.36 +/- 7.17a, T2 96.11 +/- 7.28a, T3 107.92 +/- 9.06a (Control 98.29 +/- 9.24a, all ns); catalase (U/mg protein): T1 2.97 +/- 0.85b, T2 3.73 +/- 0.76b, T3 4.47 +/- 0.90b (Control 8.72 +/- 1.02a); superoxide dismutase (U/mg protein): T1 37.64 +/- 3.40c, T2 58.65 +/- 4.63b, T3 70.00 +/- 4.72ab (Control 82.59 +/- 4.04a). Chl-a assay method: 80% acetone extraction, 1g leaf tissue, absorbance at 630/645/665nm, Chl-a = 11.6xA665 - 0.14xA630 - 1.31xA645 (Methods 2.3, Kamble et al. 2015). | PDF quality: clean text layer throughout (8 pages, standard two-column Elsevier typesetting), fully extractable via PyMuPDF, no OCR needed. Table 1/2/3/4/5 column alignment survives text extraction reasonably well but several cells show stray/duplicated decimal points and a missing leading zero (see WARN-MINOR entries above) — these read as source-PDF typesetting artifacts (values misprinted in the original), not extraction errors, since the same digit sequences appear identically when the PDF is viewed directly. Table 5’s last row (T3 serum glucose, ‘107.92 +/- 9.06’ with superscript ‘a’) is split across two lines by the PDF’s column-wrap; reassembled here as ‘107.92 +/- 9.06(a)’, not a numeric issue.

Plant Measurements

Trial	System	Category	Analyte	Value	Unit	Sig.	Location
saseendranEnhancedGrowthResponse2021-T1	T1 (BFT-AQP, 150 no.m-3)	biochemistry	Chlorophyll a	20.87 ± 1.57	ug/L	a	Table 3, p.4
saseendranEnhancedGrowthResponse2021-T1	Control (AQP, no biofloc, 150 no.m-3)	biochemistry	Chlorophyll a	12.47 ± 1.91	ug/L	b	Table 3, p.4
saseendranEnhancedGrowthResponse2021-T2	T2 (BFT-AQP, 250 no.m-3)	biochemistry	Chlorophyll a	22.57 ± 1.12	ug/L	a	Table 3, p.4
saseendranEnhancedGrowthResponse2021-T2	Control (AQP, no biofloc, 150 no.m-3)	biochemistry	Chlorophyll a	12.47 ± 1.91	ug/L	b	Table 3, p.4
saseendranEnhancedGrowthResponse2021-T3	T3 (BFT-AQP, 350 no.m-3)	biochemistry	Chlorophyll a	20.82 ± 1.59	ug/L	a	Table 3, p.4
saseendranEnhancedGrowthResponse2021-T3	Control (AQP, no biofloc, 150 no.m-3)	biochemistry	Chlorophyll a	12.47 ± 1.91	ug/L	b	Table 3, p.4

Studies references

Explorer

Enhanced growth response and stress mitigation of genetically improved farmed Tilapia in a biofloc integrated aquaponic system with bell pepper

Enhanced growth response and stress mitigation of genetically improved farmed Tilapia in a biofloc integrated aquaponic system with bell pepper

Metadata

Abstract

Summary

Growth performance under biofloc integration vs. conventional aquaponics

Bell pepper production and the nitrate/fruiting trade-off

Fish stress physiology (cortisol, glucose, catalase, superoxide dismutase)

Citations to chase

Extraction notes

Data Tables

Trial Parameters

saseendranEnhancedGrowthResponse2021-T1

saseendranEnhancedGrowthResponse2021-T2

saseendranEnhancedGrowthResponse2021-T3

Plant Measurements

Graph View

Table of Contents

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