The Atlantic salmon were supplied by a local producer, and had an
averageweight of approximately 50 g. The fish were, prior to the experiment,
screened by real-time RT-PCR and found negative for infectious
pancreas necrosis virus and salmonid alphavirus. The fish were kept at
the Industrial- and Aquatic Research Laboratory (ILAB) in Bergen,
Norway. The animal experiment had been approved by the Norwegian
Animal Research Authorities (NARA) (ID 5114). Fish were infected
after 6 weeks of acclimatisation at 12 °C in freshwater. Ten fish were included
in the experiment. Each fish was placed individually in an
autoclaved glass container filled with 5 L of freshwater, without aeration.
The glass containers with static, non-aerated water were kept at
two different temperatures (7 and 18 °C), with five replicas for each
temperature. For convenience, these individuals will be referred to as
F1 to F10 throughout the manuscript. F1–F5 fish were kept at 7 °C and
F6–F10 at 18 °C. Two fish kept at 7 °C had died from ISA (F1 and F2)
24 days postinfection (d.p.i.) whereas the remaining fish were
moribund with ISA, and were killed by a blow to the head at 25 d.p.i.
The fish were left to decompose under these conditions for up to
120 h. F1 and F2 were kept for 120 h, while F3–F10 fish were kept for
96 h.