Aquaponics - Dry fish

Yet again my poorly built system has decided to drain itself.

Fish hate it when that happens, but luckily my fish are a native Australian species (silver perch) and seem to take drought in their stride.

I was out checking my sun dried tomatoes yesterday and could hear my fish flapping about in a way that didn't much sound like a fish in water.

One of the spouts that puts water into my strawberry towers had decided to be a powerful jet instead of a trickle.

As far as I can tell, some algae built up in the pipe, and acted like a finger on the end of a hose.

Some of the other spouts to the other towers were also partially blocked, and I suspect this might have added to the pressure and assisted the water in it's escape bid.

The fish seem to be ok, and I managed to source enough system water to keep them swimming from the duckweed tank, and by reducing the grow bed depth.

All in all, a pretty good outcome for what could have been very nasty.

I hate it when something happens that I hadn't even considered as a possibility.



120 things in 20 years - a fresh, aquaponics, dry fish disaster each and every week.