Aquaculture America 2024

February 18 - 21, 2024

San Antonio, Texas

ANTIBIOTIC SENSITIVITY OF BACTERIA OBSERVED IN AQUACULTURE SPECIES IN WEST ALABAMA; 7 YEAR TREND

Sunni Dahl**, Jesse James, Luke Roy, James Tuttle, Anita Kelly

Alabama Fish Farming Center

Auburn University

529 S Centerville Street

Greensboro, AL 36744

Sld003@auburn.edu

 



West Alabama aquaculture farmers use antibiotics as a feed additive to treat major bacterial diseases including Edwardsiella ictuluri, Edwardsiella piscicida, virulent Aeromonas hydrophila, nonvirulent Aeromonas (hydrophila, veronii, sobria, caviae) and Flavobacterium covae (columnaris). When farmers wish to use antibiotics, personnel at the disease laboratory at the Alabama Fish Farming Center (AFFC) test the bacteria for resistance using antibiotic discs. However, other bacterial diseases have been used to test sensitivity to the approved antibiotics. These diseases include Pleisiomonas spp, Clostridium spp, and Streptococcus inea.  In this study, bacterial cases brought into the Alabama Fish Farming Center from year 2015-2023 were tested using antibiotic sensitivity disks for the FDA approved Aquaflor (florfenicol), Terramycin 200, and Romet (sulfadimethoxine + ormetoprim) antibiotics. During the last two years, the AFFC personnel have started to do Minimum Inhibitory Concentrations for several additional antibiotics. There is evidence that these various bacteria are building resistance to the common antibiotics used to treat bacterial disease outbreaks.  Sensitivity for all were determined as: diameter of 0-10 mm as resistant, 11-19 mm as intermediate and greater than 20 as susceptible. The data will show the resistance present amongst different diseases in West Alabama and how it has progressed over seven years.