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Tilapias are fish originally from Africa which nowadays are commercially bred in almost 100 countries, being one of the most commercially bred species in the world. In this work the trematode population of the monogenoidea group present in the branchiae of Nile tilapias bred in 4 net-ponds with volume of 4 m3 each, was monitored during 5 months. The juvenile fish, presenting initial average weight of 37.65 g originated from other piscicultures, were stocked in the density of 250 animals.m(-3) and monthly monitored until their commercialization, with final average weight of 485.4 g. The prevalence of these ectoparisites was high, between 90 and 100% in all months. The highest values of average intensity of infestation--AII and average abundance of infection--AAI occurred during the 2 first months of captivity, presenting a new increase in the last month of breeding. The only monogenoidea group present in the branchiae of the animals examined belonged to the Dactylogyridae family. The values of the dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH, nitrite and ammonia were within normal rate. In these conditions there were no significant differences between the relative condition factor--Kn among the parasited and non-parasited animals and also in the different levels of infestation, showing that, in these breeding conditions, the relationship parasite-host-environment presented itself in balance without causing great harm to the animals.

The precocious diagnosis of pathologies in the aquatic way is constituted in a vital need for the success of the cultivations. Considered as parasites opportunists, infestations of monogeneans capsalides can cause missal mortalities resulting in enormous damages in the cultivations. Juveniles of dusky grouper Epinephelus marginatus (Lowe, 1834), with medium weight of 142.74 +/- 38.65 g, presented refusal of the feeding and symptoms as the darkening of the body, erratic swimming, opacity of the eyes and hemorrhages in several areas of the body. Some fishes presented lesions in the eyeball and blindness. After analyses of the fish the occurrence of the parasite Neobenedenia melleni was identified. This work objective was to test therapeutic treatments seeking the monogenean capsalid eradication in juveniles of dusky grouper. Three treatments were tested in form of baths: T1 (fresh water for 10 minutes); T2 (formalin: 1:2,000 for 10 minutes) and T3: (formalin: 1:4,000 for 10 minutes). The treatments were evalueted by scraping epithelium tissue, mounted in slide glass and cover slip and observed by light microscope. It was observed that in the tested conditions T1 and T2 were efficient in the elimination of the monogeneans capsalids without presenting lethality in the dusky grouper.

A total of 4,298 snails Bradybaena similaris were collected from the rural area of Rio de Janeiro County and from the Counties of Paracambi and Itaguai, State of Rio de Janeiro. Two thousand and five of these snails had metacercariae in their pericardial cavity. The collecting was done between October 1983 and September 1986. The annual average prevalences were: 42.89% (1st year), 43.42% (2nd year) and 55.86% (3rd year). Experimental infection in chicks allowed the identification of these metacercariae as Postharmostomum gallinum. The small variation in size observed among metacercariae from the same host indicates that recruitment does not occur on a continuous basis. Statistical analysis showed no correlation between the snail size and the number of metacercariae in the pericardical cavity, and that the snail mortality observed in the laboratory was due to the parasitic infection.