Fish Diseases and Management

Examination of muscle or gonad for colour and texture

• Examine for "cotton shrimp". This is due to microsporidian parasitism.
• Cramped muscle syndrome may result from a nutritional disorder in which affected shrimp display a flexure (cramp) of the abdomen that cannot be straightened. In severe cases, mortalities can be very high.
• For microsporidian examination,
  

1. Remove a suspect tissue from the shrimp and smear onto slide, add drop of clean seawater, and examine with phase of reduced light bright-field microscopy.
2. Masses of uniform sized spores (visible at 200 to 400X) will be present if white muscle, gonad or HP disease was due to microsporidian infection.
3. Smear may be fixed and stained with Giemsa or an acid-fast stain to better display the spores.