“Isolation and Identification of Aeromonas hydrophila as the cause of bacterial infections in cultivated species of cold water fish”

Fish farming industries that exist throughout the world, suffer great financial loss from bacterial infections that cause massive death of fish. It is well known that one of the major cause of bacterial infections in cold waters are several representatives of genus Aeromonas. The major purpose of the presented research was to detect, isolate and identify Aeromonas hydrophila, which is one of the cause of bacterial infections of cultured species of fish living in cold waters. The experimental part involved determination of physical-chemical and microbiological parameters of water pollution of selected salmon industries, collection of water and diseased fish samples and their processing, in order to isolate the target microorganisms. During the experiment, we isolated 135 presumed Aeromonas spp. isolates. As a consequence of phenotipical identification of bacterial isolates, only 48 of them were assigned to genus Aeromonas. API 20E biochemical test-system confirmed the presence of 26 Aeromonas hydrophila/caviae/sobria. Species specific Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) identified 19 isolates as Aeromonas hydrophila. Isolation of Aeromonas hydrophila species from vast majority of diseased fish samples collected from researched industries in Georgia, points toward the conclusion that in stated salmon industries, death and diseases of fish can be attributed to the presence of this exact pathogen.