THE EFFECT OF MICROBIOLOGICAL AND PHYSICO CHEMICAL QUALITIES OF FRESH WATER FISH PONDS
1.1 Background to the Study
Fish and its product are very important to human population all over the world. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (2002), most of the world’s population (56%) derives at least 20% of its animal protein intake from fish. This is because fish is the preferred source of much desired animal protein as compared to poultry, beef, mutton or pork. It is comparatively cheaper and highly acceptable with little or no religious bias which gives it advantage over the proteins (Phillips, 2004).
In Nigeria, fish pepper Soup is one of their best delicacies leading to a higher demand for fish in the region. This gave rise to the increasing number of fish farms in the region in order to meet the demand for fish and also offset the scarcity of fish gotten from the wild environment. Fishes are reared in different culture media or controlled environment which could be ponds (concrete or earthen), vats (wooden or fiber glass) and plastics (Osawe,2004). Among these culture systems concrete and earthen pond are widely used (Ezenwa, 2006).
Earthen pond culture system has been the conventional method of fish culture in Nigeria, until recently; concrete tanks culture system is gaining grounds as land become costly, scarce and readily unavailable (Onome and Ebinimo,2010). Research has shown that a higher number of fish farmers use concrete ponds (73%) as compared to 27% using earthen ponds in Nigeria (Ugwumba, 2010). Fishes cultivated in these controlled environments have been found to be contaminated by microorganisms (pathogenic and opportunistic organisms) (Fafioye, 2011; Nguyen et al., 2007). This contamination has been attributed to questionable water quality and high stocking densities (Okpokwusili and Ogbuile, 1998). The feed used for the fish in these ponds contain organic materials and introduces a wide variety of microorganisms in the ponds (Okpokwasili and Ogbuile, 1999).
1.2 Problem Statement
Among the constraints of fish farming is the high cost of feeding, which resulted to the use of animal.manure to augment conventional feed in countries like Nigeria. However, Organic manure also leads to the release of high concentration of opportunistic and pathogenic microorganisms into the ponds which are of public health concerns. Hence their is need to evaluate the microbiological and physico chemical qualities of fresh water ponds in Nigeria.
