Assessment of some selective media for the recovery of Aeromonas hydrophila from surface waters.

A comparison was made of three different growing media already proposed by some authors for the recovery of Aeromonas hydrophila in environmental water samples of various origins. The media tested were Rippey and Cabelli m Aeromonas agar, Rimler-Shotts agar and the Ryan Aeromonas Base Medium with the addition of ampicillin. The efficiency of the three media was evaluated on the basis of the following reference criteria: accuracy, selectivity and specificity. The results obtained, analyzed by calculating the Kendall concordance coefficients, demonstrated that m Aeromonas agar is the most suitable media for quantitative recovery of Aeromonas hydrophila from surface water samples even if a reduction in the total heterotrophic load of 3-logs was never obtained with this medium.