NewzGhana is looking to aquaculture to help close its fish-supply gap. But producing more fish comes with another challenge — keeping them alive. For fish farmers, some of the most dangerous threats begin where the human eye cannot reach.
A pond may appear calm and healthy while dissolved oxygen levels are falling, ammonia is rising, or the pH is changing. By the time fish begin struggling at the surface, a farmer may already be facing significant losses. One fish farmer recalls how difficult it was to know when something was going wrong with the water.
“Before we had the pool, it was very difficult to tell that there was something wrong with the water, simply because certain parameters can’t be detected using the eye,” he said. The farmer said the warning often came only after fish had started dying. “We only knew there was something wrong with the water when we had lost a number of fish,” he added.
After losing a large number of fish, the farmer turned to AquaMet, a locally developed water-quality monitoring technology. He said the system changed how decisions were made on the farm. “Following that, we were able to predict the changes in water quality, to be able to make informed decisions so that we can prevent the events that happened,” he said.
Turning invisible changes into data That is the problem Frank Owusu, founder of AquaMet Technologies, is trying to address. His experience in aquaculture exposed him to the difficulties farmers face when they cannot see what is happening inside their ponds. AquaMet has developed a water-quality monitoring system designed to give farmers real-time information about conditions beneath the surface.
Sensors placed inside ponds, cages or tanks monitor parameters including dissolved oxygen, ammonia, temperature and pH. The data is transmitted remotely to a mobile platform, allowing farmers to monitor changes without having to be physically beside the water. Owusu said the aim is to move farmers from reacting to losses to preventing them.
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