Responses to thermal and salinity stress in different Artemia urmiana, Günther, 1890, populations grown in municipal wastewater

Due to limitations in the exploitation of cline water resources, aquaculture cannot meet the growing demand of populations. Artemia is known as one of the important model organisms in researches and the most important live food in the aquaculture industry. In order to investigate the possibility or rearing and quality of cultured Artemia in present study, four different populations of A. urmiana, harvested from different areas of Urmia Lake, were reared in 75g/l salinity in two treatments of fresh water and chlorinated (3 ppm) waste water. The animals were fed with a combination of single-celled algae and single-celled yeast according to standard protocols. The growth and survival of the Artemia were measured on the third, seventh, eleventh, fifteenth and twentieth day of culture. At the end of the period, resistance to high temperatures of 35 and 38 centigrade and high salinities 360, 280, 240, 180, 120ppt were examined by adult Artemia. This study showed there are significant differences in the growth and resistance to environmental stresses (p<0.05) between different populations of A. urmiana obtained from different areas of the Lake. According to the results, rearing by the waste water was very effective in all growth factors, survival and resistance to environmental stresses compared to fresh water (p <0.05). The results of present study revealed that the chlorinated municipal wastewater is suitable for artificial rearing of Artemia which could produce a biomass with better growth rate and resistant to environmental conditions.