Incidence of piscine parasites on the gills and gastrointestinal tract of clarias gariepinus (teugels) at bagauda fish farm, Kkano

The aim of this work is to investigate piscine parasites of gills and intestinal tract of Clarias gariepinus. Six hundred and forty five (645) specimens of specie were examined fortnightly for a period of one year from November, 2006 to October, 2007. One hundred and fourteen (114) and one hundred and ninety nine (199) were infested fish samples from gills and gastrointestinal tract respectively. Parasites recovered during the survey include two species from gills identified as Ergasilus sarsi ((24.60%) a crustacean (copepod), and one protozoan (myxosporean) named Henneguya sp (11.82%). However, parasites recovered from the GIT composed of four different specie of Cestodes (35.53%) comprising of Anomataenia sp, Bothriocephalus aegypticus, polyonchobothrium polypetri and polychobothrium sp, two species from nematodes (28.13%), with Procaamallinus laevionchus and unidentified specie. All these parasites were located in the intestinal lumen of the specie with the exception of Anomataenia and Procaamallinus species dominating the stomach region only. Females samples had higher incidence rate 235 (75.5%) than males 78 (24.9%), there was no significant difference (P>0.05) in infestation rate. Incidence of infestation among the three sized classes showed adults were mostly infested (69.03%) followed by sub adults (26.82%) with juveniles (4.2%) being the least parasitized. There was significant difference in incidence rate (P<0.05) among the three classes. Analysis of results indicated size influenced the degree of infestation rates in adults’ size. And the sex of host did not influence the incidence of the parasites.