Ammonium Removal in Aquaponics Indicates Participation of Comammox Nitrospira.

Aquaponic systems are sustainable solutions for food production combining fish growth (aquaculture) and production of vegetables (hydroponic) in one recirculating system. In aquaponics, nitrogen-enriched wastewater from fish in the aquaculture serves as fertilizer for the plants in the hydroponics, while the nitrogen-depleted and detoxified water flows back to the aquaculture. To investigate bacterial nitrogen-cycling in such an aquaponic system, measurements of nitrogen species were coupled with time-resolved 16S rRNA gene profiling and the functional capacity of organisms was studied using metagenomics. The aquaponic system was consistently removing ammonia and nitrite below 23 µM and 19 µM, and nitrate to steady-state concentrations of about 0.5 mM. 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing of sediments exposed in the pump sump revealed that typical signatures of canonical ammonia-oxidising microorganisms were below detection limit. However, one of the most abundant operational taxonomic units (OTU) was classified as a member of the genus Nitrospira with a relative abundance of 3.8%. For this genus, also genome scaffolds were recovered encoding the only ammonia monooxygenase genes identified in the metagenome. This study indicates that even in highly efficient aquaponic systems, comammox Nitrospira were found to participate in ammonium removal at low steady-state ammonia concentrations.