The growing popularity of the aquarium trade is greatly increasing the demand for many ornamental fish. While shipping technology has made the worldwide transportation of ornamental fish possible, a significant portion of the fish caught for the aquarium trade perish in transport before being sold to hobbyists. One of the major causes of fish death in transport is ammonia building up to toxic levels in the shipping bags. In order to solve this problem, we investigated the effectiveness of using nitrifying consortia in reducing the ammonia build‐up in marine fish bags during transport. A pre‐activated nitrifying consortium was effective in safely maintaining low ammonia levels during a three‐day experiment. We found that both ammonium chloride and urea can activate nitrifying consortia. Activation of nitrifiers by urea is not only novel but also beneficial due to being less harmful to fish in comparison with ammonia. We also discovered that unexpectedly one nitrifying consortium examined mainly contained ammonia‐oxidizing archaea. The confirmation of the concept of the use of activated nitrifying consortia and the usefulness of nitrifying archaea for fish transportation may be beneficial for the fish trading and aquaculture.

中文翻译：

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硝化古细菌和细菌的联合体在鱼类运输中的应用可能有益于鱼类贸易和水产养殖

水族馆贸易的日益普及极大地增加了对许多观赏鱼的需求。尽管运输技术使观赏鱼的全球运输成为可能，但用于水族馆贸易的捕捞鱼中有很大一部分在运输前灭亡，然后出售给业余爱好者。运输中鱼死亡的主要原因之一是氨在运输袋中积聚到有毒水平。为了解决此问题，我们研究了使用硝化联盟减少运输过程中海水鱼袋中氨气积累的有效性。在三天的实验中，预活化的硝化联合体可有效地安全维持低氨水平。我们发现氯化铵和尿素均可激活硝化财团。通过尿素活化硝化剂不仅是新颖的，而且由于与氨相比对鱼类的危害较小，因此也是有益的。我们还发现，出乎意料的是，一个硝化财团主要检测到了氨氧化古细菌。确认使用活化硝化财团的概念以及硝化古细菌在鱼类运输中的有用性可能对鱼类贸易和水产养殖有益。