A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THE ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY OF PLANT MATERIAL INCORPORATED FEED IN POECILIA LATIPINNA AND XIPHOPHORUS HELLERIDivya M.S.Abstract A comparative feeding experiment carried out in two ornamental fishes P. latipinna and X. helleri (Poeciliidae family). They were supplemented with six types of feed designated as CF (commercial feed), TD1 (Control feed), TD2 (Allium sativum feed), TD3 (Bacopa monnieri feed), TD4 (Myristica fragrance feed) & TD5 (Combined feed) for 60 days. After the stipulated time the survived fishes were sacrificed to isolate their tissues like gut, gill along with water samples to evaluate the bacterial load. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) test of microbial load in Aquaria revealed highest in TD1 (1475000 CFU) and lowest in TD4 (165000 CFU). The ANOVA Test showed that there is significant difference in the microbial load among different feeds. In X. helleri ANOVA test showed that there is significant difference in the gut mean microbial load with highest in TD1 (590000 CFU) and lowest in TD5 (98500 CFU) and its mean microbial load in gill was highest in TD1 (640000 CFU) and lowest in TD5 (15000 CFU) among different feeds at 1% level of significance (p-value < 0.01). In P. latipinna the mean microbial load in gut expressed higher in TD1 (490500 CFU) and lowest in TD3 (15500 CFU) and the ANOVA test showed no significant difference among feeds while the mean microbial load in the gill was highest in TD1 (640000 CFU) and lowest in TD5 (15000 CFU) with significant difference among different feeds at 1% level of significance. |