Determination of the fungal flora in the rearing water, eggs, larvae and post-larvae of <i>Penaeus monodon</i> in a large-scale hatchery system

Abstract

The rearing water and homogenized. eggs, larvae, post-larvae of Penaeus monodon were taken front the large-scale hatchery system. These were counted, isolated and identified. Analysis was done by determining the mean, standard deviation and skewness of the data. The result showed that the skewness of the yeast and mold counts in the rearing water were 0.93 and 0.64, respectively 'while that in the homogenized samples were 0.92 and 1.09, respectively. These showed that the data were positively skewed, hence, fungi were greater in the early larval stages than in the later stages. The mean showed that yeast yielded greater counts as compared to the molds. Furthermore, rearing water have also higher fungal count than that of the homogenized prawns. The fungi identified were Aspergillus, Balanium, Bispora, Cladosporium and Phialomysis. In the study, the fungi identified were the normal mycoflora which did not adversely harm the prawn due to favorable hatchery conditions, there being no disease outbreak during the duration of the study.