A protein chip based on surface plasmon resonance imaging (SPRI) was developed for detecting fish iridovirus antibody using a recombinant 50-kDa fragment of major capsid protein (MCP) as an antigen. The diagnostic potential of SPRI for measuring antibodies to the iridovirus MCP was compared with that of a conventional enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) using 40 juvenile rock bream (Oplegnathus fasciatus) serum samples in a nursery. There was a strong positive correlation between the SPRI and ELISA (n = 40, r = 0.939, P < 0.01). Therefore, this recombinant 50-kDa MCP can be used as an antigen for serological studies, and the SPRI, which is a label-free and high-throughput method, is potentially a valuable tool in the serodiagnosis of an iridoviral infection.