International Journal of Aquaculture, 2016, Vol.6, No.15, 1
-
13
1
Research Article Open Access
Growth Performance, Blood Profile, Organosomatic Indices and Histopathology
of
Clarias gariepinus
Fed Amoxicillin as Dietary Additive
Adewole Adeyemo Muniru
Department of Animal and Environmental Biology, AdekunleAjasin University, PMB 001, AkungbaAkoko, Ondo State, Nigeria
Corresponding author Email
International Journal of Aquaculture, 2016, Vol. 6, No.15 doi
Received: 15 Aug., 2016
Accepted: 10 Nov., 2016
Published: 28 Dec., 2016
Copyright © 2016
Adewole, This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article
:
Adewole A.M., 2016, Growth performance, blood profile, organosomatic indices and histopathology of
Clarias gariepinus
fed amoxicillin as dietary additive,
International Journal of Aquaculture, 6(15): 1-13 (doi
Abstract
A 12 week feeding trial was conducted to investigate the effect of administration of different dosages of amoxicillin on
biophysiological responses: nutritional, haematological, serum biochemical, organosomatic indices and histopathological study of
juvenile
Clarias gariepinus.
One hundred and eighty juvenile
C
.
gariepinus
with the mean weight of 10.94 ±0.01 g were stocked
into the different treatments using a completely randomized design. The fishes were fed diets containing iso-nitrogenous crude
protein (40%) at 5% body weight, twice a day. Histopathological results showed no visible lesions in some of the tissues of the fish
fed with control and amoxicillin diets. However, there were marked pathological conditions that were manifested in some organs like
the liver, brain, kidney and intestine of fish. The inclusion of amoxicillin at 0.5% in the diet of
C
.
gariepinus
is being advocated in
sustainable catfish production in Nigeria.
Keywords
Amoxicillin; Biophysiological;
Clarias
gariepinus
1 Introduction
Antibiotics are extensively used in human and veterinary medicine with or without regulations mostly among
small scale farmers, with a resultant emergence of multidrug resistance bacteria. The type and amount of
antibiotics used in aquaculture depend on the farming practices, local and national regulations, as well as
government enforcement policies. The restrictions on the use of antibiotics are different with some countries
recently introducing stricter regulations in response to the global threat of antimicrobial resistance and consumer
concerns about residues in food. The majority of aquaculture productions, however, take place in countries with
“permissive regulations” and limited environmental monitoring. The overall use, therefore, varies widely between
countries, ranging from 1 g/metric ton of production in Norway to 700 g/metric ton in Vietnam (Defoirdt et al.,
2011).
Among the class of antimicrobial agents used for growth promotion in Nigeria. tetracyclines, penicillins,
macrolides, lincomycin and fluoroquinones are the most commonly used antimicrobial agents in animals for
treatment and prevention of diseases. Evaluating the quantity of antimicrobial agents and how they are used in
animal production in Nigeria is an important issue to be considered, because studies have shown that animal drugs
are grossly misused in Nigeria and are readily available without prescription (Aibinu et al., 2007; Olatoye and
Basiru, 2013; Olufemi et al., 2015) for prevention of disease outbreak or to reduce mortality losses without
engaging the services of veterinarians for disease diagnosis and treatment.
Aquatic animals are colonized by trillions of microorganisms that have a symbiotic relationship with their hosts
and are distributed in gills, body surface and gastrointestinal tract and played an important role in nutritional,
physiological and pathological events (Denev et al., 2009). Antibiotics are drugs of natural or synthetic origin that
have the capacity to kill or inhibit growth of microorganisms (NAOH, 2001). Antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs)
are administered at low doses in the feed and they act by specifically reducing the number of pathogenic bacteria
in the gut (Dafwang et al., 1987). Supplementing animal feed with antimicrobial agents to enhance growth has
