Microbial screening of antibiotic residues in soil and water of cultured fish farms in Tamil Nadu

Aquaculture is one of the main protein sources in the world. Due to the intensification in aquaculture, the occurrence and the spread of disease is more. To control and treat the disease in aquaculture, farmers started using antibiotics in improper manner. This leads to the deposition of antibiotic residues in water and soil, which later transformed to fish that makes them resistant to that particular antibiotic. It was later transformed to other animals and humans, which makes them resistant to that antibiotic. Henceforth there is a need to screen the presence of antimicrobial residues in soil and water.

In this study, microbiological methods were used for screening antimicrobial residues. For microbial screening, Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli were used as a marker microorganism. Totally 75 samples of soil and 75 samples of water were screened for antimicrobial residues.

The results revealed that 8%, 4% and 13.33% of pond soil samples and 10.66%, 6.66% and 21.33% of pond water samples were contaminated with oxytetracycline hydrochloride, florfenicol, sulphadimethoxine and ormetoprim residues. This review clarifies that microbial screening has a unique advantage of economical and a simple method that can be used as a preliminary method for screening antibiotic.