Probiotic performance on fish fry during packing, transportation stress and post-transportation condition

An experiment was conducted to determine whether the application of probiotic after transportation provides the same benefit of probiotic application prior to/during transportation in improving fry survival and growth. Fry of the Indian major carp Catla catla were stocked into 2 tanks (capacity: 2000 L) for conditioning. During this time one tank was treated with probiotic at the rate of 10 ppm for 2 h. The other tank was not treated with probiotic. The fry from both treatment and control tanks were packed in plastic bags at a packing density of 400 fry L^-1. The fry that previously received probiotic treatment were packed in water containing probiotic whereas the fry from the control tank was packed in water without probiotic. The bags were transported to the laboratory and unpacked after 13 h. Treatment with probiotic resulted in higher survival (98.4%) whereas fry not treated with probiotic had a mean survival of 92.5%. Post-transportation, the fry in each bag were stocked in individual, shallow, plastic tanks at a density of 25 fry L^-1 and reared for five days. The fry that were administered probiotic during transportation were either treated with probiotic or not treated during this period. Similarly, the fry that were not administered probiotic during transportation, were either treated with probiotic or not treated. Wherever applicable, probiotic was added at the rate of 10 ppm per day after water exchange, but before first feeding. They were fed ad libitum three times per day. Fry that were treated with probiotic throughout the trial gave the highest survival (95.2%) and growth (mean final weight = 1060 mg).