Health Management in Aquaculture: Prospective Role of Probiotics and Prebiotics

In recent years, the aquaculture industry has expanded rapidly, expanding both horizontally and vertically. However, this expansion has come with the challenge of frequent disease outbreaks, threatening the sector’s growth and sustainability. Regardless of best management practices (BMPs) and biosecurity precautions, antibiotic usage becomes unavoidable during infectious disease outbreaks, particularly in high-value aquaculture practices such as trout, catfish, and shrimp culture within intensive systems like intensive aquaculture ponds, recirculatory aquaculture systems (RASs), biofloc-based aquaculture, and aquaculture raceways. The indiscriminate and irresponsible antibiotics uses or antimicrobial resistance has emerged among harmful microorganisms, raising serious concerns regarding consumer safety because of antibiotic residues in fisheries products. Therefore, it is essential to adopt methods that are sustainable and environmentally friendly for disease prevention and treatment in aquaculture. Recently, holistic ecosystem management strategies involving pathogen exclusion and environmental manipulation have emerged as effective disease control measures in aquaculture. Such strategies include using probiotics and prebiotics as feed supplements to improve aquatic animal health and as water and soil supplements to improve aquatic environment health.