Assessment of lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) essential oil as a natural anesthetic and sodium bicarbonate as a sedative on physiological and histopathological status of Tilapia zilli during the transport practices

Abstract

This study presents a new plan to improve the efficiency of transporting live fish using lavender oil (Lavandula angustifolia) as a deep anesthetic prior to transportation and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) as a sedative during transporting on physiological indices, histopathological alterations, and survival rate of Tilapia Zilli fingerlings. Fish were exposed to conditions simulating those normally used in transporting. This experiment consisted of five treatments using two levels of lavender oil as a pre-deep anesthetic (200 and 400µl/liter, previously) for 5 minutes thereafter water in all aquaria was totally exchanged then adding different two levels of sodium bicarbonate as a sedative with concentrations (2.5 and 5 g/liter) these treatments were compared with the control group and normal fish that were not exposed to stressful conditions in terms of physiological statues, net ion fluxes, and survival rate after directly or 24 hrs transporting. Results affirmed that the control group and treated group with 400 µl/liter of lavender oil as a predeep anesthetic with 2.5 or 5 g/liter of bicarbonate of sodium as a sedative led to an increase in ion loss of fish bodies, deterioration in water quality and physiological statues with increasing mortality rate in comparison with treated groups with 200 µl/liter of lavender and 2.5 or 5 g/liter of sodium bicarbonate in special groups that treated group with 200 µl with 5g of lavender oil and bicarbonate sodium respectively.