Geosmin off-flavour in pond-raised fish in southern Bangladesh and occurrence of potential off-flavour producing organisms

Mikael Agerlin Petersen, Ariful Alam, Mizanur Rahman, Lokman Ali, Sultan Mahmud, Louise Schlüter, Niels O. G. Jørgensen

10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Pangas Pangasianodon hypophthalmus and tilapia Oreochromis niloticus were cultivated for 6 mo in earthen ponds in Bangladesh to examine occurrence of the off-flavour geosmin in water and fish and to test procedures for reduction of off-flavour. In the ponds (~1 m depth and area of 400 m2), the average geosmin concentration was 3.9 ng l-1 (range 0.2 to 20 ng l-1). No effects of season or water treatment (sand filtration or probiotic microbes) were found. The content of geosmin in the fish was 21 ng kg-1 (range: 0.0 to 91 ng kg-1) for pangas and 17 ng kg-1 (range: 0.0 to 68 ng kg-1) for tilapia. Water treatment reduced the geosmin content by 56 to 74% in pangas, but no effect was found in tilapia. Likewise, depuration for ≥12 h in groundwater lowered the geosmin content in pangas (by 65 to 90%) but not in tilapia. Sensory analysis indicated a positive effect of both water treatment and depuration, and the fish were graded 'no or mild flavour' after such treatment, compared to 'strong off-flavour' in controls. Abundance analyses of known offflavour producing microorganisms (streptomycete bacteria and cyanobacteria) showed a high density of streptomycetes (0.5 to 13% of the bacterial population), while cyanobacteria made up a maximum of 9.3% of the phytoplankton biomass or were absent. This first study on off-flavours in pangas and tilapia in Bangladeshi ponds indicates that geosmin was not a major off-flavour in the fish, but improvement of sensory quality by water treatment and depuration suggests that other, unidentified off-flavours were present in the fish.

Original languageEnglish
JournalAquaculture Environment Interactions
Volume5
Pages (from-to)107-116
Number of pages10
ISSN1869-215X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014

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