Identification of Bacteria Isolated from Crude Oil Polluted Fish Pond Undergoing Bioremediation

The study was carried out to identify bacteria associated with crude oil polluted water collected from the Fish pond, Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, Federal University of Technology Akure, Ondo State Nigeria. The water samples were aseptically collected into several capped bottles and transported to the laboratory, Department of Microbiology, for microbiological analyses and were analyzed at interval of two weeks using pour plate techniques. Nutrient agar (NA) was used for the isolation of bacteria. The bacterial isolates were identified by morphological and biochemical characterization using the taxonomic scheme of Bergey’s manual of Determinative Bacteriology. The bacteria obtained from the polluted water were Bacillus cereus, Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Micrococcus luteus. The total bacterial counts obtained from the polluted samples ranged from 2.5x106 to 6.0 x106 Cfu/mL at 0.25% and 4.0x106 to 7.0x106 Cfu/mL in 1.5% crude oil polluted water while unpolluted samples ranged from 5.2 x 104 to 5.8x104Cfu/mL. B. cereus and B. subtilis had the highest frequency of occurrence of 26.3% and 21% respectively while Staphylococcus spp., Streptococcus spp. and Escherichia coli had the least. The bacterial species obtained in this work can be further subjected to degradation tests.