Bacteriological study in association with heavy metal tolerance and antibiotic resistance pattern of bacterial population of freshwater giant prawn post larvae

Abstract

50 sample bacterial isolates were isolated from Macrobrachium rosenbergii post larvae at marine hatchery of Universiti Malaysia Terengganu. This study were performed to investigate and quantify bacteria colonies, antibiogram, heavy metal and to correlate the relationship of antibiotic and heavy metal resistance with regards to bacterial isolates. There are several agar such as non-selective agar, Trypticase Soy Agar (TSA) and five selective agar which are MacConkey , Thiosulfate Citrate Bile Sucrose (TCBS), Eosin Methylene Blue (EMB),Glutamate Starch Pseudomonas (GSP) and Xylose Lysine Deoxycholate (XLD) were used to isolate the bacteria from post larvae. Results have been showed that bacterial isolates were mostly resistant to Ampicillin and Amoxycillin in antibiotics test by using 15 antibiotics. Based from the total of multiple antibiotic resistant (MAR) Index ; 0.6, had shown that the environment were highly expose to the antibiotics environment such as in water quality. Heavy metal test showed Mercury was successfully can tolerate with all the isolates than Copper. Copper showed the lowest tolerance with the isolates. Bacterial isolates were resistant to antibiotic and heavy metal. The study may provide basis knowledge about the occurrence of heavy metal and antibiotic resistant bacterial strains which may raise preventive measurement on use of antibiotic and awareness on hatchery management.