Water recirculation and good management: potential methods to avoid disease outbreaks with Flavobacterium psychrophilum

Abstract

Flavobacterium psychrophilum infections cause high mortality among rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss, fry in Danish fish farms and hatcheries. Hatcheries based entirely on bore-hole water recirculation systems have been suggested as a possibility for eliminating F. psychrophilum or at least keeping the amount of this bacterium low. The occurrence of the bacterium in a bore-hole water recirculation system was compared with a combined bore-hole water and stream water flow-through system in a hatchery where outbreaks of rainbow trout fry syndrome caused by F. psychrophilum often occurred. Broodfish, unfertilized and fertilized eggs, eyed eggs and fry, as well as water samples from the tanks/troughs with broodfish/fry, were examined. Suspect yellow bacterial colonies were either confirmed or rejected as F. psychrophilum by growth characteristics and by PCR. As both virulent and less virulent F. psychrophilum isolates are known, isolates were characterized. The isolates were ribotyped and grouped according to ribotyping patterns. Representatives of the groups were serotyped. Fry isolates were very homogeneous whereas isolates from broodfish were heterogeneous, whether the isolates originated from external surfaces of the fish (mucus from skin and gills, haemorrhages and ulcers) or internal organs. Flavobacterium psychrophilum was isolated from broodfish in both water systems; 56% of investigated broodfish from the borehole/flowthrough system and 36% from the recirculation facility harboured the bacterium. In the recirculation system, the bacterium was isolated from fish (ulcers, milt, liver, abdominal cavity) kept in the system for 11 months. Flavobacterium psychrophilum was found in milt and ovarian fluid as well as on the surface of fertilized eggs, but not inside the eggs. Fry also harboured F. psychrophilum, but in the water recirculation system the bacterium was first isolated from the fry after they had been graded. Flavobacterium psychrophilum was found regularly in other parts of the hatchery (outside the recirculation facility), including at the time of grading, suggesting that the occurrence of F. psychrophilum in the fry recirculation facility was due to contamination from the borehole/flow-through hatchery. It is suggested that the combination of bore-hole water recirculation systems and good management procedures (including egg disinfection) is a possible method for hatcheries to avoid disease outbreaks due to F. psychrophilum.