Penicillin-G: Efficacy against Flavobacterium psychrophilum and evaluation of lethal dose limits for rainbow trout

The effect of penicillin-G on Flavobacterium psychrophilum, the cause of bacterial coldwater disease, was evaluated in 15 min and overnight exposures. Separate tests evaluated the effect of increasing doses of penicillin-G to rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss eggs, fingerlings, and adults. Rainbow trout eggs were exposed for 1 h to penicillin doses of 0, 250, 500, 1000, 10,000, 50,000, or 100,000 IU/mL. Mean percent hatch ranged from 64.6% to 75.1%, and did not significantly differ among the treatments. Fingerlings were injected intraperitoneally (i.p.) with 200 μL of 0, 1, 10, 100, 1000, 10,000, 100,000, or 500,000 IU/mL. Probit analysis resulted in a LD10 (lethal dose for 10% of injected fish) of 52,868 IU/mL (95% confidence limits: 31,522 69,490 IU/mL) and a LD50 of 131,466 IU/mL (113,095 157,878 IU/mL). Brood stock were injected (i.p.) with 200 μL of penicillin at concentrations of 0 (control), 10,000, 50,000, 100,000, 200,000, 400,000, or 800,000 IU/mL. Mortality ranged from 0% to 7% (50,000 IU/mL treatment) and did not significantly differ among treatments. In 28 h exposure tests, penicillin concentrations of ≥ 333 IU/mL were required to completely suppress growth of F. psychrophilum. In 15 min exposures, ≥ 10,000 IU/mL were needed to achieve the same result. Tests indicated that rainbow trout eggs can tolerate 1 h exposures to penicillin-G concentrations as high as 100,000 IU/mL, and that brood fish can tolerate injections of at least 800,000 IU/mL. Fingerling data however, suggested that injection of doses greater than 10,000 IU/mL can be toxic. The data suggests rainbow trout eggs or brood can tolerate high doses of penicillin-G that could be used for controlling the transfer of F. psychrophilum to hatcheries receiving eggs.