Status of biosecurity and prevalent parasitic diseases in finfish hatcheries of Jessore, Bangladesh

Abstract

The present study was conducted to know the status of biosecurity and prevalent parasitic diseases in finfish hatcheries of Jessore district. The peak season of seed production was found April to May. Management of biosecurity has been practiced to prevent disease outbreaks and exert quite satisfactory. It was observed; hatchery owners cleaned their hatchery units regularly and maintained hygiene (76.66%), water quality (56.66%), disinfected equipments (76.00%), stocked disease free broods (76.00%) and quarantine (56.66%). Prevalence of diseases were- lernaeasis (34.10%), argulosis (23.86%), leeches (11.36%), dactylogyrosis (7.95%), gyrodactylosis (10.23%) and others (12.50%) in brood fish and fry. In broods, average prevalence was 16.67% with 9.25% mortality. Besides average prevalence was 10-15% with 10% mortality in fry. The epizootiological pattern showed the highest frequency of parasitic diseases during winter because of loss of appetites. The study demonstrated that sumithion was used by (93.32%), magic (46.33%), depterax (56.67%), lime with KMnO4 (80.00%), lime with salt (66.67%) and lime- salt- KMnO4 (50.00%) by hatchery owners respectively for treatments. Lack of assistance, proper knowledge and suitable therapeutics with its proper use were the major problems in the hatcheries.

Review of the current situation, problems, and challenges in fish seed production and supply for Bangladesh's aquaculture development

“…1) of fish seed comes from fish hatcheries, indicating that the rapid expansion of inland aquaculture in Bangladesh has been supported by greater access to hatcheries producing fish seed (Hasan and Bart, 2006). In the past, fish culture depended utterly on the seed supply from natural sources (Debnath et al, 2020;Samad et al, 2014). However, the contribution of natural sources to the total supply of fish seed was reduced due to the shrinkage and destruction of natural breeding grounds for fish (Jega et al, 2018;Khan et al, 2022), the degradation of ecological balance (Aktar et al, 2014;Rahman et al, 2020;Shamsuzzaman et al, 2017), climate change (Aziz et al, 2021), pollution, overfishing, and the use of destructive fishing gears.…”

“…In Bangladesh, some hatcheries rear and maintain their brood stock, while others acquire brood fish during the breeding season to fulfil their target (Rahman et al, 2020). Most of these brood stocks are collected from different sources, such as Halda River, Padma River, Meghna River, Jamuna River, Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute (BFRI), and government brood banks to avoid inbreeding and to ensure seed quality (Rahman et al, 2020;Samad et al, 2014;Sharif and Abdulla-Al-Asif, 2015). The age of brood fish ranges between 1-6 yr for males and 1-3 yr for females, and hatchery owners use the same brood fish for 3-5 yr.…”

“…Furthermore, Bangladesh does not have a health certification system or diagnostic laboratory to check the health status of the fish and seedlings. As a result, fish farmers do not know whether their fish are carrying pathogens (Samad et al, 2014). Common fish diseases in hatcheries and early rearing stages are caused by parasites, bacteria, viruses, and fungi (Alam and Rashid, 2014;Faruk and Anka, 2017).…”

“…4). The prevalence of disease changes with the season and winter (October to January) was identified as the period of high susceptibility to parasitic disease (Mortuza and Al-Misned, 2015;Samad et al, 2014). Proper health management strategies, maintenance of good water quality, proper nutrition, and the establishment of biosecurity measures are very important to prevent or restrict the introduction and spread of disease within or between fish production facilities (Faruk and Anka, 2017).…”

“…Aquaculture production, mainly from earthen ponds, is the main contributor (57%) to the total fish production (DoF, 2022), which is in line with future goals for fish production. However, for upward development and sustainable aquaculture production, timely delivery of highquality fish seed is a prerequisite (Samad et al, 2014;Little et al, 2002). The demand for quality fish seed is growing due to the increasing participation of people in the aquaculture industry (Biswas et al, 2021).…”