Increasing Iodine Concentrations during Landlocked Fall Chinook Salmon Egg Disinfection Decrease Bacterial Numbers with No Impact on Egg Survival

Abstract

AbstractEgg disinfection is an important practice that prevents potential disease transfer, but currently allowable disinfection regimes do not completely eliminate external egg membrane microbes. In this experiment, newly fertilized and water‐hardened landlocked fall Chinook Salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha eggs were submersed for 10 min in povidone‐iodine solutions containing 0, 100, 200, and 400 mg/L active iodine. External egg bacterial numbers (CFUs) were quantified after each disinfection treatment, and egg survival (%) was calculated at the eyed stage. All of the disinfection treatments significantly reduced CFUs compared with untreated controls. However, eggs from the 400‐mg/L iodine treatment had significantly lower CFUs (2.20 ± 0.59 [mean ± SE]) than the 100‐mg/L (10.43 ± 8.01) and 200‐mg/L (8.10 ± 1.51) treatments. Percent survival was not significantly different among any of the treatments; survival was 18.86 ± 5.17%, 19.17 ± 4.76%, and 20.16 ± 5.27% in the eggs subjected to 100 mg/L, 200 mg/L, and 400 mg/L iodine, respectively. These results indicate that 10‐min treatments of 400 mg/L active iodine on landlocked fall Chinook Salmon eggs provide the most microbial reduction with no effect on subsequent egg survival.