Health monitoring and disease management

The culture of marine finfish in cages was successfully initiated in Japan in 1950s and in South East Asia during 1970s. In the initial years of cage culture, fish seed for culture was collected from the wild. Recent developments in hatchery technology and seed production of commercially important marine finfish and shellfish have ensured the continuous supply of seed for mariculture practices. The disease control and health management are important issues for sustainable aquaculture. The disease occurrence causes major economic loss to aquaculture farmers. Production costs often increase due to disease outbreaks and treatment procedures followed to overcome death of fishes during culture. In natural aquatic environments, disease problems are unnoticed as diseased/weak/stressed fishes are easily removed by predators and very few occurrences of disease outbreaks are reported. Moreover in natural environment fish are not crowded as in captive culture conditions, which ultimately causes stress in fishes frequently