ABSTRACT
One of the rapidly developing food production sectors in India is aquaculture. For reducing the pathogen in aquaculture, antibiotics have been used as feed additives for many decades. However, the use of antibiotics in aquatic animals may cause resistance to the microorganisms. The need for efficiency of feed digestion, disease resistance, growth, and immune system enhancement of aquatic animals has increased in the aquaculture industry. The maintenance of intestinal microbes in the host gut is the important criterion for the growth of healthy aquatic animals. Probiotics are one such alternative that exerts their beneficial effect when supplemented through fish diet to the host. This chapter summarizes the beneficial application of probiotics as a feed for aquatic animals to increase the aquaculture production by enhancing growth rate, immune response, water quality, and preventing colonization of pathogen in the gastrointestinal tract.
