Aquaculture Microbiome Analysis
Optimize Aquatic Health with Rapid Microbial Insights
Monitor disease risk, water quality, and microbiome dynamics in aquaculture environments with Cosmos-Hub—fast, accurate, and no coding required.
Why Aquaculture Microbiome Analysis Matters
The success of aquaculture operations hinges on microbial balance in water, sediment, and host organisms. Disruptions can lead to disease outbreaks, reduced yield, and economic losses. Microbiome analysis empowers aquaculture professionals to take a proactive approach, identifying imbalances before they become visible problems.
As the world’s fastest-growing protein sector, aquaculture demands fast, reliable insights into microbial communities impacting fish, shellfish, and the surrounding environment.
Example Sample Types for Aquaculture Microbiome Studies
- Tank water and biofilm samples
- Sediment from pond, marine, or RAS systems
- Skin, gill, or gut microbiota of fish and shellfish
- Feed-associated microbial content
- Probiotic or antimicrobial treatment impact studies
- Disease outbreak diagnostics and routine surveillance

How Cosmos-Hub supports Aquaculture Health Management
Fast, no-code processing of 16S or metagenomic sequencing data
Detects pathogens and beneficial microbes with strain-level resolution
Compares microbial profiles across sites, life stages, or treatment periods
Tracks AMR genes and virulence factors impacting fish health
Relevant Pipelines
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Kepler™: Host-Agnostic Taxonomic & Functional Profiling
Kepler™ enables aquatic system managers to uncover subtle microbial trends and actionable shifts, even in complex, low-biomass marine environments.
Cosmos-Hub offers Kepler™ in combination with a host-agnostic functional pipeline, Functional 2.0, which interrogates shotgun metagenomic and metatranscriptomic data to understand metabolic and biochemical potential by annotating translated reads with numerous functional databases:
- MetaCyc Pathways,
- Enzyme Commissions,
- Pfam,
- CAZy,
- GO Terms.
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Emu: Long-Read Amplicon Profiling
Emu is a growingly popular tool designed specifically for long-read amplicon data generated by Oxford Nanopore Technologies or Pacific Biosciences instrumentation. The Cosmos-Hub iteration of Emu is built with flexibility in mind, allowing users to analyze 16S, ITS, 18S or full 16S-18S-23S full operon data. Additionally, many databases have been implemented to allow users to tailor their analysis to their sample type and study questions:- 16S Amplicon: GreenGenes2, SILVA, GreenGenes2, GTDB SSU 220, EMU Default, MIDAS, HOMDB.
- ITS Amplicon: UNITE
- 18S Amplicon: SILVA
- 16S-ITS-23S Full Operon: RRN
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Short-Read Amplicon Profiling
Our amplicon sequencing workflows provide high-resolution taxonomic profiling of microbial communities using targeted regions—16S rRNA for bacteria and archaea, and ITS for fungi.
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The short-read 16S pipeline utilizes the DADA2 algorithm for denoising and ASV inference, ensuring genus resolution of bacterial taxa. Taxonomy is assigned using the SILVA database, and community-level functional potential via Metacyc Pathways and Enzyme Commissions is inferred with PICRUSt2.
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The short-read ITS pipeline is optimized for fungal community profiling, leveraging the QIIME framework along with the UNITE database for closed-reference OTU picking. It processes reads through trimming and merging, outputting tables of OTU IDs, frequencies, and relative abundances.
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Ready to Dive Into Healthier Aquatic Ecosystems?
Unlock the power of high-resolution microbiome analysis with Cosmos-Hub.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Can Cosmos-Hub analyze water and sediment samples?
Yes. The platform handles a wide range of aquatic sample types with optimized workflows for environmental and host-associated microbiomes.
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How quickly are results available?
Results are typically delivered within 1–3 hours of data upload.
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Does the platform identify aquatic pathogens and probiotics?
Absolutely. Cosmos-Hub detects microbes down to the strain level, including known pathogens and beneficial organisms.
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Can I assess treatment or seasonal changes over time?
Yes. The system supports comparative and longitudinal analysis of samples across timepoints, environments, or treatments. -
Is this suitable for large commercial operations?
Definitely. Cosmos-Hub scales easily from pilot projects to enterprise-level aquaculture systems.