Aquatic animal diseases with awareness and perception of freshwater fish farmers on aquatic animal health management practices in tropical archipelago of India

This paper highlights the aquatic animal diseases and stakeholders perception towards aquatic animal health management for better governance and management in freshwater aquaculture sector of Andaman and Nicobar Islands (ANI), a tropical archipelago of India. Viral, bacterial, fungal, parasitic and nutritional deficiency diseases are reported from the aquatic animals of ANI. Among these, parasitic diseases are dominated in which protozoans, myxozoans, monogeneans, helminth and crustaceans are rampant. Freshwater fish farmers (n = 305) of ANI were interviewed to gain detailed insights on their existing culture practices. Majority of the respondents are not following better management practices such as proper pre-stocking or pond preparation (62.30