Assessment of Suture Type Performance on Survival and Healing of Warm Water Fish Surgically Implanted with Acoustic Transmitters

Surgical insertion of acoustic transmitters can affect fish health and cause mortality. Therefore, the project success relies on the survival of fish after surgery. Despite the growing number of fish telemetry projects in Brazil, little is known about surgical effects on tropical fish species. The performance of four suture types on survival and healing of Prochilodus lineatus surgically implanted with acoustic tags was experimentally assessed in this study. Each treatment had a combination of two different needles (taper point and reverse cutting) and two different suture types (absorbable, Poliglecaprone-25, and non-absorbable, Nylon). Healing, wound area and mortality rate were assessed at 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 days after surgery. Wound healing was observed for all treatments up to the seventh day after surgery, although wound areas evolved until the second week, reducing or ceasing until the sixth week. Absorbable suture with taper point showed larger wound areas. The overall mortality rate was 6%, whereas 66.7% occurred before the seventh day. Almost 50% of the dead fish were tagged with absorbable suture with reverse cutting needle. Thus, most of the postsurgical effects on fish were significantly higher on treatments using absorbable sutures and more pronounced in the first two weeks.