Cutting-edge technologies for Detecting and controlling fish diseases: Current status, outlook, and challenges.

Islam, S. I., Ahammad, F., & Mohammed, H. (2024).

Disease occurrence can severely impact aquaculture production and ultimately affect the growth of the industry. One primary challenge is the ability to predict a disease outbreak before it causes significant loss. This review assesses the potential for new technology, such as internet of things (IoT) sensors, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, to be used in a way that allows farmers to monitor farms and detect potential problems early. Comprehensive information and highlighting of potential machine learning algorithms for early pathogen detection are included. It is also noted that machine learning has much promise and although it is feasible to diagnose illness quickly, the farmer should thoroughly understand these technologies. This will require large-scale training, but such training combined with clinical assessments by fish health professionals is critical to final disease diagnosis and should not be excluded from the use of new and modern technologies.

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Effects of stocking density during simulated transport on physiology and behavior of largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides).

Yang, Y., Narayan, E., Rey Planellas, S., Phillips, C. J. C., Zheng, L., Xu, B., Wang, L., Liu, Y., Sun, Y., Sagada, G., Shih, H.-Y., Shao, Q., & Descovich, K. (2024)

This study evaluated welfare indices for the transport of live fish, an important practice for aquaculture in China and other countries. The authors simulated transport densities of either 39 or 78 g/L for market-sized largemouth bass under static or non-static conditions for 3 hours. They found that changes in water quality occurred and that total ammonia nitrogen (TAN) increased in all treatments over time while dissolved oxygen decreased. Fish in high-density treatments showed elevated ventilation rates as well as high serum cortisol, catalase, and aspartate transaminase levels. Additionally, a positive correlation between transport and serum and mucus cortisol, glucose, and lactate was found. Such findings provide the potential to assess the physiology of transported fish using less invasive methods. Overall, information from this study addresses important fish welfare conditions that can affect animal health and well-being. Implementing lower-density transport would likely reduce stress and result in higher-quality products for the consumer.

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Skeletal anomalies in gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata) larvae reared in different densities and water volumes.

Dellacqua, Z., Di Biagio, C., Martini, A., Mattei, F., Rakaj, A., Williams, J. C. Jr., Fabris, A., Izquierdo, M., & Boglione, C. (2024)

This study looked at skeletal phenotypes of gilthead seabream larvae associated with density and water volume. An experimental trial using low density (LD), medium density (MD), and high density (HD) was conducted using two water volumes (500 and 1000 L). The experiment tested these conditions from spawning to 60 days post-hatching (dph). Interestingly, length and weight was significantly higher in the HD groups but LD-reared seabream had a significantly lower incidence of jaw and vertebral body and arch anomalies when compared to MD or HD-reared larvae. Findings from this work have implication on final product quality and the perception related to morphological differences between farmed and wild harvested fish.

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