Potential Role of Zeolite on Improvement of Aquaculture Sector”

Aquaculture, which is very important in many regions of the world, attracts attention as the fastest growing sector in the livestock sector in our country. The share of our country's aquaculture production in the production of total aquatic products is increasing day by day. According to TURKSTAT data, the total production of aquatic products in 2003 was 587,715 tons whereas the amount of aquaculture was 79,943 tons with 13.6 %. These amounts reached 672,241 tons in 2015 and 240.334 tons with a rate of 35.75 %. While the amount of crops obtained by cultivation increased every year, the increase rates decreased after 2007. One of the most important reasons for this is the issue of feed and feed raw materials and quality problems. Studies have been carried out to solve these problems and importance has been attached to additives that reduce cost and feed conversion ratio (FCR) to contribute to feed quality. In these materials, zeolites came to the forefront. Zeolites were first described as a mineral group in 1756 and crystal structures were resolved in the 1930s. After that, synthetic materials were started to be produced because it was thought that they were in small quantities in nature. There are about 150 zeolites, 40 of which are natural and the rest are synthetic. Due to the gap between 20 and 50 % in the structure, the molecules can be taken into the structures and they are named as molecular sieves. Because of these properties, various types of zeolites nowadays have been used in many fields such as paper, detergent, construction and health sectors and mining and metallurgy in addition to prevention of road icing, vegetation and animal production, storage of fruits and vegetables and transplantation, pollution control and aquaculture clinoptilolite and mordenite type have no side effects. Zeolites are used for purposes such as controlling the pollution in pools in the aquaculture sector, increasing the growth parameters of the fish by incubation, fish transport and removal of nitrogen compounds from aquarium water, increasing ambient oxygen in aquarium and fish transport, and as feed additive. In previous studies carried out in our country, rainbow trout rootstocks using clinoptilolite type zeolite in our country have not been able to accumulate in the tissues and have been found to be effective in development in tilapia and rainbow trout weighing 20 g have been found to be very effective both in terms of growth and growth parameters and body composition although they do not affect the growth rates used in rainbow trout rootstocks. According to the present situation, Japan is the first country in the world to produce zeolite. In Turkey, billions of tons of zeolite have been detected and clinoptilolite type zeolite is found mostly in the beds of Ankara-Polatlı-Mülk-Oğlakçı Region and Bigadiç, Şaphane, Gediz, Emet and Gördes Districts. We believe that the use of zeolites produced in our country as a local and natural product as feed additive substance in the aquaculture industry in the aquaculture sector will contribute to the production of lower cost fish as well as contribute to the development of 2 different sectors (aquaculture and mining) in interaction with each other