Bacterial Abundance in Shrimp Culture System of Penaeus Monodon (Fabricius, 1798)

A study was carried out to estimate the bacterial abundance in a shrimp culture system of Penaeus monodon (Fabricius, 1798) located on the banks of the river Vellar, Parangipettai, southeast coast of India. Various physicochemical parameters, bacterial density, sediments and the shrimp in the pond water were estimated. The physicochemical parameters were within the normal limits throughout the culture period. The bacterial density increased with the days of culture mainly due to increase in the organic load in the culture system. Sediments harbored more bacterial density (2.21 * 106 to 6.31 * 106 CFU g–1) than the water (1.85 * 103 to 5.71 * 103 CFU mL–1) and shrimp (1.62 * 105 to 5.18 * 105 CFU g–1). In the pond water, the bacterial density fluctuated and no definite trend was observed during the culture period. But the pond sediments with their higher organic matter content recorded higher bacterial density than the pond water showing a general trend of increase in bacterial density with the progress of the culture. During the present investigation, a total of 47 bacterial strains were isolated and identified up to the generic level. The gram negative bacteria and Vibrios were the dominant microbial flora in the total population