Healthy C. striatus (average body weight of 40 g) were obtained
from the Surya Agro Farms Ltd., Erode, Tamil Nadu,
India. Fishes were maintained in flat-bottomed plastic tanks
(100 L) with aerated and filtered freshwater at 29 ± 2◦
C
in the wet lab of Division of Fisheries Biotechnology and
Molecular Biology, SRM University. All fishes were acclimatized
for a week before being challenged to A. invadans
and A. hydrophila. A maximum of 10 fishes per tank were
maintained during the experiments.