Freshwater fish parasites in Temengor, Chenderoh and Bersia reservoirs, Perak, Malaysia

Abstract

Parasitic infection causes a decrease in wild fish population and financial losses in culture fish.
Fundamental biological variables like fish parasite composition baseline data and fish hosts parasites interactions on fish parasites are needed in establishing a monitoring and
management system of these freshwater fishes to mitigate the possible adverse effect of these
parasitic diseases. There is no information about protozoa and myxozoa parasitic fauna of the
fishes in River Perak reservoirs. The prevalence of freshwater fish parasites in Temengor, Bersia and Chenderoh Reservoirs, Perak was investigated for 23 months for fish parasites using standard parasitological techniques. A total of 32 species of parasites detected belonging to 8 major taxa: 2 species of protozoans, 2 species of myxozoa, 12 species of monogeneans, 3 species of digeneans, 4 species of nematodes, 3 species of acanthocephalans and 5 species of copepods. Balantidium sp., Henneguya sp., and Myxobulus sp. were newly recorded parasites species in the reservoirs. The prevalence of parasitic infection in the reservoirs were 51 % in Temengor, Bersia 61% and Chenderoh 65 %. The parasite diversity of the fish parasites per reservoir were moderate. The parasite with the highest prevalence rate was recorded in Paradiplozoon barbi (17.39 %). Eighteen fish species were infected with parasites out of the twenty-five species sampled from the reservoirs. The fish family Cyprinidae was the dominant and most parasitized fish family in the reservoirs.