Abstract
The international production of farmed fish has been growing continuously over recent years. Until now few veterinary drugs have been approved by the European Union for use in aquaculture, and this has favored the off-label use of products authorized for use in food-producing animal species different from fishes among fish farmers. Adequate field studies are lacking, especially for those species called minor species which are consumed extensively only in some European countries. In the present investigation we studied the depletion of the fluoroquinolone antibacterial enrofloxacin over time in a minor species, the rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), reared on a real fish farm and treated with medicated feed (10 mg kg of trout body weight(-1) day(-1)). Edible tissue samples (muscle plus skin in natural proportions) and fish bone samples were analyzed for enrofloxacin and for its major metabolite, ciprofloxacin, by high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection at different times after the end of treatment. Our results show that at 500 degrees C-day (in which degree-days are calculated by multiplying the mean daily water temperature by the total number of days on which the temperature was measured), which is the minimum withdrawal period established by European Economic Commission Directive No. 82/2001 for any type of product administered off-label, edible trout tissues might still contain about 170 microg of enrofloxacin kg(-1), whereas the maximum residue level for enrofloxacin plus ciprofloxacin is set at 100 microg kg(-1). To our knowledge, no studies of the depletion of enrofloxacin in rainbow trout have been performed. On the basis of the data obtained in the present study, we suggest a more appropriate withdrawal time of 816 degrees C-day for the sum of enrofloxacin plus ciprofloxacin levels in rainbow trout muscle plus skin tissues.