Quick fish sampling for disease diagnostics: Bacteriology sampling guide

Bacterial diseases represent one of the major impediments to sustainable aquaculture. Routine screening for bacterial pathogens at various life stages of tilapia, carp and catfish a are important to minimise their introduction into production systems and before they can cause serious diseases and spread to new areas.

During an abnormal mortality event, routine sampling for bacteriology from moribund animals should take place rapidly as part of the disease diagnostic investigation.

Bacteriology is the culture and identification of bacteria growing under specific conditions. WorldFish and partners developed this quick guide on fish bacteriology sampling. Standard bacteriology is a swab taken from the caudal or anterior kidney and inoculated onto agar (e.g. Tryptone soya agar) to screen for systemic bacterial infection. Additional swabs may be included in the presence of external or internal lesions/ulcers (e.g., eye, skin, mouth, liver, spleen, brain).

A free online training course on bacteriology sampling is also available via Learn.ink.

1707205227_bacteriology-sampling-guide.pdf

Publisher: WorldFish

Rights: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial.

Related

Quick fish sampling for disease diagnostics: Package of practices

Quality biological sampling is a fundamental requirement for all kinds of work on diagnosing diseases and screening for pathogens. Fish sampling requires specific techniques and skills to collect good biological samples for accurate disease diagnosis. This package of practices developed by WorldFish and partners provides advice on fish sampling protocols for routine disease diagnostics and outbreak investigations in tilapia, carp and catfish production systems. These sampling protocols provide guidance and training to project team members, researchers, resident veterinarians, extension officers and farmers tasked with collecting quality biological samples for laboratory diagnosis whenever disease outbreaks occur on farms or hatcheries. A free online introductory course on fish sampling for disease diagnostics is also available via Learn.ink.