This is the second book covering diseases in multi-species marine fish by retired Professor Leong Tak Seng, PhD. The first book published in 2014 was on “Parasites and Diseases of Warm Water Marine Finfish in Floating Cage Culture.”
Leong has spent his entire scientific and industry career in marine fish disease management. He joined the School of Biological Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) in 1975 and retired as a Professor of Parasitology at the School in 1998
In Asia, mariculture began in the early 1970s and grew rapidly in the late 1980s with the success of hatchery-produced marine fish fry in Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia. Most of the floating cages, culturing multi-species marine finfish, are located along the coastal regions. Initially, culture was of wild caught fingerlings of estuary groupers Epinephelus coioides and golden snappers Lutjanus johni. Disease outbreaks soon occurred after their introduction into cages. The epidemiology of parasites and diseases in marine finfish culture in floating cages began in the mid-1980s at Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia.
The book is divided into nine chapters. The first two are general information on fish cultured in floating cages, the diversity of fish species, grow-out production cycles, status and diseases problems in fish farms. There is also a discussion on the stress factors, and do stresses cause fish disease outbreaks?
Chapter 3 covers freshwater treatments of diseases and chapter 4, deals with freshwater treatment of ectoparasites in healthy fish and during disease outbreaks. Chapters 5 and 6, cover the effect of use of hydrogen peroxide treatment on ectoparasites on healthy fish and some miscellaneous problems encountered during the studies. Chapter 7 gives a summary of these studies and an attempt to determine the primary ectoparasitic pathogen(s) that cause disease outbreaks. Chapter 8 provides standard operation procedures for floating cage farms.
“Initially fish disease symptoms observed in floating cages through 1985 to 2013 were similar in all fish species cultured. The basic question is, what is or are the primary ectoparasites pathogen(s) that initiate these disease outbreaks? We then started monitoring studies between 2015-2018 in a floating cage farm in Penang to determine the above question(s). These studies were different from other monitoring studies in that only ectoparasites Benedenia/ Neobenedenia spp., leech Zeylanicobdella arugamensis and parasitic copepods Caligus spp. populations on the body surface were examined from freshwater treatment on all fish cultured in a cage. Ectoparasites on the gills were not examined as fish have to be killed for the study,” said Leong in the preface.
The information in this book is useful for fish farm owners, fish health consultants, fish parasitologists and pathologists and diagnostic laboratories.
Managing Multi-Species Marine Finfish with Primary Ectoparasites Pathogens of Diseases in Floating Cages
Author: Leong Tak Seng
Publication date: April 2022, 73pp
ISBN 978-967-13028-1-1
