A comparative study of impact of water and soil quality on fish diversity of Monoha beel and Elenga beel of Morigaon, India

A comparative study of Monoha beel and Elenga beel of Morigaon Assam was conducted during premonsoon and monsoon season of 2011. Elenga is an effluent receiving water body from Nagaon paper mill and Monoha is an unimpacted water body of the same locality. Water and soil samples from both the beels were analysed and fish diversity was also observed.Water and soil quality of Monoha beel was found to be within permissible limit.Nineteen families of fish species were recorded during the study. All of which are food fishes and some are ornamental fishes. Cypriniformes were the dominant group. But due to paper mill effluent only air breathing fishes were found in Elenga beel in certain spots. Carps and other cypriformes fishes were totally absent due to low DO (0.09-2.56 mg/l), high chloride (124-149 mg/l), high pH value(7-10.3), high FCO2 etc. On the basis of present finding it is concluded that the paper mill effluent not only impact the water quality but also alter the distribution and abundance of fish species of the locality studied