improve water quality, inhibit pathogens and promote the growth of farmed fish (Verschuere et al., 2000). The use of probiotics which control pathogens through a variety of mechanisms is viewed as an alternative to antibiotics and become a major field in the development of aquaculture. Keeping in view of the beneficial effects of probiotics, some enthusiastic farmers are recently using commercially available probiotics in their fish ponds. However, there is no documented evidence on the efficacy of these probiotics on the ecological processes in fish ponds of this region and so far no attempt has been made to study the role of probiotics in improving water quality and bacterial flora in fish ponds. Hence, the present study was undertaken to know the water quality and the changing patterns of beneficial and pathogenic bacterial loads in fish ponds treated with pond probiotics and compare the results with those of the untreated pond.
MATERIALS AND METHODS