Aquaponics - Safe fish hides

I've been very lucky since being unlucky.

The first fish deaths I had over the first months after cycling my aquaponics system, turned out to be caused by a plant that seems to be only poisonousness to fish.

Since then, I haven't had any more deaths, but it occurs to me that it might be possible for a fish to die, and I might never notice. Or at least not notice before it began to decompose and foul my water.

The eleven silver perch spend most of their day hiding from imaginary predators in the halved terracotta pot I put in the water for precisely this purpose.

You can never be too safe from imaginary predators.

But if and when I make a bigger system, I think I'll make some fish hides in such a way, so that if a fish dies or is sick, it cant just get all sleepy in the hide on the bottom.


I suspect the easiest way to do this would be to suspend the hide a little way off the bottom, of even high up near the surface. That way if anything dies or is struggling, it will be obvious, on the bottom rather than hidden from view.

As a temporary measure, I've cut the base out of my terracotta pot using my preferred precision tool,(hammer) so it's now a tunnel. The powerhead is pushing flow directly into the hide so if anyone gets sleepy, they will get pushed out the back, and should become visible.

I'm not expecting to lose a fish, but simply had the thought because of hearing about someone else's problems.