Data from: Towards environmentally friendly finfish farming: A potential for mussel farms to compensate fish farm effluents

Aquaculture is seen as a possible solution to meet the rising demand for
fish but only if the sector reduces its use of wild fish in feed as well
as its environmental impacts. The cultivation of extractive species along
with fish farming (the integrated multi-trophic aquaculture
system, IMTA) has the potential to mitigate the adverse environmental
effects of fish farming. The dynamic energy budget (DEB) modelling is a
powerful tool to be used in different aquaculture settings to achieve the
Blue Growth goals set by the commission. This study explored the potential
of mussels for bioremediation at finfish farms to develop environmentally
sustainable finfish farming solutions in the eutrophic Baltic Sea region.
The study integrated the DEB models of blue mussels (Mytilus
edulis/trossulus) and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and a regional
hydrodynamic-biogeochemical model to explore the potential of mussel
farming to fully compensate for nutrient discharges from finfish farms.
The DEB models demonstrated that despite suboptimal mussel growth
conditions (low salinity), mussel farming has the potential to fully
compensate for the discharge of nutrients from fish farms and thereby
provide a solution for sustainable fish farming in the Baltic Sea region.
As such, fish farming may become a necessary enabler of economically
sustainable mussel farming in the region. Mussel farming facilitates
finfish farming licensing whereas finfish farming covers some costs of
mussel farming thereby increasing the economic feasibility of this
activity in the region.