Constraints of health management of commercially cultured high valued fishes
This study was performed to understand the constraints of health management of commerciallycultured high value fishes including gulsha (Mystus cavasius), shing (Heteropneustes fossilis) and koi (Anabastestudineus). One hundred farmers were interviewed through structured questionnaire in Mymensingh andJashore districts. Most of the farmers practiced polyculture of gulsha and shing with carps and monocultureof koi high densities. All the three species suffered from a number of serious diseases under farmingconditions. Most prevalent clinical signs of diseases were ulcerative hemorrhagic lesion, whitishappearance over body surface, ventral and mouth reddening and fin rot. The most susceptiblespecies to disease was shing with a higher average mortality of 43.33% followed by gulsha(36.71%) and koi (38.76%). Diagnosis of disease was the single most important constraints ofhealth management followed by lack of farmer’s knowledge on fish health and diseases, presence ofhuge number of poor quality medicine, ineffectiveness and indiscriminate use of such medicine,lack of farmer’s ability on application of medicine and absence of qualified fish health adviser.Lack of good quality fish seed, feed and water were identified as the main resource problemsassociated with fish health management. The study also identified a number of general constraintsof farming of high value fish which included low price of fish, higher feed cost, and outbreak ofdiseases, high land tax, electricity bill and marketing problem. Further studies should focus on thedevelopment of strategies for better health management practices for sustainable commercial cultureof high value fishes.