The spotted tiger shovelnose catfish Pseudoplatystoma punctifer (Castelnau, 1855), has a high commercial value and there is considerable interest for its culture in Peru and outside of its original distribution area. Infestations by branchiurans may cause damage to stock resulting in economic losses on fish and in fish farming. Thus, the present study set out to detail the infection on farmed stock at one Peruvian site. Twenty fish were collected from a fish pond located in Iquitos, Peru in April 2018. All fish were parasitized by Dolops discoidalisBouvier, 1899, with an intensity of 92 (1–13 parasites fish-1), with a mean abundance of 4.6 ± 3.3 parasites fish-1. There were correlations between fish standard length, weight and parasite number (rs = 0.51, p =.02; rs = 0.64, p =.002) respectively. The relative condition factor of the hosts was not affected by the parasitism. The high prevalence of argulids detected warns the possibility of an epizootic, under inadequate management conditions or drastic changes in physical and chemical water parameters, placing the production of this fish species at risk.