An Overview Of Diseases Of Freshwater Ornamental Finfish Aquaculture In Florida     Roy P. E. Yanong   Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory, Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences,  Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Ruskin, FL     The ornamental fish industry in Florida comprises approximately 50% of all aquaculture in the state, and was valued at 43 million dollars farm gate in 1999. Over 800 varieties of fish are raised in Florida by approximately 200 producers(Florida Agricultural Statistics Service, June 2000).   Health issues in ornamental finfish production are compounded by several factors: 1) the number of species and varieties raised, 2) different production techniques used, and 3) different levels of sophistication among producers. Fish health problems can be broadly categorized as management: 1) water quality (including weather); 2) nutrition; 3)predator/animal control; 4)grading/transport/handling; 5)culture system technology; and pathogens: 1) bacteria; 2)parasites; 3)viruses; 4) fungi.  These categorizations are of course, artificial divisions and in the real world, there is much overlap during disease events.  Management issues of interest include: 1) weather (excess heat and cold); 2) complete nutrition (growout, in recirculating systems and deformities {swordtails, barbs, koi}; hepatic lipidosis {African cichlids, rainbowfish}); 3)predator/animal control (aquatic reptiles, wading birds, otters).  Pathogens of interest: 1) bacteria (Aeromonas spp., Vibrio spp., Flavobacterium columnare, Streptococcus spp. and related spp., Mycobacterium spp.); 2) parasites (in recirculating systems, Trichodina sp.; in ponds, digenean trematodes and pentastomids; flagellates, especially Spironucleus vortens and Cryptobia iubilans, and others); 3)viruses (iridovirus, herpesvirus {?}).  “New” chemotherapeutics, vaccines, cell-line development, histopathological analysis of normal fish and those with viral disease, nutritional studies, and methods of harvesting, grading, and transport are a few of the projects currently being investigated through the University of Florida.