Blood Hemogram Profiles of Farmed Onshore and Offshore Gilthead Sea Bream (Sparus aurata) from Sicily, Italy

The aim of the present study was to assess the values of haematological parameters using an automatic method and to evaluate the blood profile in gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata) reared in different aquaculture systems (offshore cage and onshore tanks). For this reason, 100 fish (5 replicates for each aquaculture system) reared in two Sicilian farms with different management: offshore cages (Farm 1) and onshore open concrete tanks (Farm 2), were used. In both aquaculture farms, physical and chemical characteristics of water were detected. After collection, blood samples were immediately analysed with both manual and automatic methods. Our results showed that sea bream with similar biometric data (in mean 292 g in weight and 27.2 cm in total length for Farm 1; 232 g in weight and 24.6 cm in total length for Farm 2), but rearing in different conditions, have different baseline haematological values and this underline that water quality could influence haematological parameters of fish. In particular, it was seen that Farm 2 showed a lower value of RBC, Hct and WBC and higher value of Hgb, TC, MCV, MCH and MCHC than Farm 1. In particular, mean values of 3.28 and 2.89 in RBC; 7.38 and 45.19 in Hct, 8.31 and 10.66 in Hgb, 62.55 and 53.80 in WBC, 67.92 and 88.66 in TC, 146.3 and 157.5 in MCV, 25.55 and 37.13 in MCH and 17.6 and 23.62 in MCHC were recorded respectively for Farm 1 and Farm 2. The variations in haematological parameters due to different location of farm allow us to claim that changes in blood characteristics are important indices in monitoring the effect of habitat changes and management on the fish physiology.