Mycobiota in feed for farmed sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax)

Aquaculture producers, feed manufactures, farmers and distributors and their feed quality-control are, nowadays, placed in the centre of feed safety issues due to possible repercussions of residues in food. The aim of this preliminary study was to evaluate fungi contamination in 87 samples finished fish feed samples for sea bass (52 extruded feed and 35 pellet), were randomly collected from different factories in Portugal. All extruded samples revealed to be negative for fungi contamination. Concerning to 35 pelleted samples, mould counts were around 1.0 ×10 to 6.5 ×10 2 cfu.g -1 . Six moulds genera were recovered. Aspergillus flavus had the highest incidence appearing in 35 samples (100 %), with a range of 1.0 ×10 2 - 1.5 ×10 3 and a mean value of 5.3 ×10 2 . In the second order were the moulds from the specie Aspergillus niger in 34 samples (97 %) with a range of 1.0 ×10 - 4.5 ×10 2 and a mean value of 1.6×10 2. Aspergillus glaucus had a percentage of 74 % with a levels ranging between 1.0 ×10 to 2.5 ×10 2 . Penicillium and Cladosporium both recovered from 25 samples (71.4 %) with a range of 1.0 ×10 2 - 6.5 ×10 2 and 1.2 ×10 2 - 2.0 ×10 3 and a mean of 1.2 ×10 2 and 9.8 ×10 1 , respectively. To the fifth order was mould from the genera Fusarium contamination from 22 samples (62.8 %) with a range of 1.0 ×10 - 1.9 ×10 2 and a mean of 7.1 ×10 1 .