Effects of Crude Oil and Spent Oil on Clarias garipinus: A Typical Marine Fish
Abstract
Problem statement: Petroleum hydrocarbon and petroleum residue (i.e., spent oil) remains the foremost pollutants to the fish communities in various aquatic media-ponds, streams, rivers, creeks, coastal and marine environments through indiscriminate disposal of oil contaminated drilling muds, cutting and oil spillages. Approach: Also, the spent oil enters into aquatic media through run-off following unguided disposal. Both the petroleum hydrocarbon and spent oil, on getting to the water bodies spread fast and produce lethal, sub-lethal and even acute effect of petroleum hydrocarbon and spent oil on the fingerlings and other juvenile fishes. Results: Since this group of fish constitutes about 60% of the fish population in any aquatic medium, a green house study was carried out to assess the effects of crude oil and spent oil on fingerlings of Clarias garipinus-a typical marine fish. In this study, fingerlings of Clarias garipinus were exposed to 2-10% concentration of crude oil and spent oil for 96 h period. Readings were taken every 24 h. From concentration of 4-10%, high mortality rate averaging 10 out of 10 fingerlings were recorded. Conclusion/Recommendations: The deaths were attributed to reduced dissolved oxygen and blockage of the water surface by the oils. Concentrations of 2% showed a reduced level of mortality, which even lapsed over the 96 h period. The mortalities were owed to impairment in neurologically dysfunction. Changes in physiological character such as changes in skin color and reduced locomotive actions were also observed.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3844/ajessp.2009.753.758
Copyright: © 2009 A. M. Gbadebo, A. M. Taiwo and O. B. Ola. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
- 3,755 Views
- 4,142 Downloads
- 10 Citations
Download
Keywords
- Crude oil
- spent oil
- aquatic media
- Clarias garipinus
- Nigeria