Prevalence of Ectoparasitic Infestation in Indian Major Carps During Winter at Different Blocks of South 24-Parganas District, West Bengal, India

The study was carried out to find the prevalence of ectoparasites in carp species specifically Indian Major Carps (IMC) during the post monsoon season (November’16 to March’17). Four groups of ectoparasites viz. myxozoan, ciliophoran, monogenean and crustacean were recorded from a total 500 number of  carp species like, Labeo rohita, Catla catla, Cirrhinus mrigala and Labeo calbasu collected from different ponds of selected blocks of South 24-Parganas district of West Bengal. The highest prevalence (64.8%) of infestation had been recorded by Myxozoans and the lowest was by Monogeneans (4.8%). The highest and lowest ectoparasitic prevalence in carp was observed in L. rohita (32.9%) and C. catla (27.3%). Beside these, lower temperature (Average 19.3oC), low pH (Average 6.9) and marginal level of dissolved oxygen (Average 6.0ppm) were also created an unfavorable condition for parasitic infestation during this season. At the end of this experiment it was concluded that disease occurrences due to ectoparasites was high in winter with some key factors like temperature, pH and dissolved oxygen (DO).