Efficient Water Exchange System in Fish Ponds or Tanks for Improved Fish Productivity

In addition to providing foreign exchange to Uganda, fish is one of the commodities that can provide the best proteins to improve nutrition especially in children and pregnant women and hence support food security. Efforts have been made to enhance the production of fish by encouraging aquaculture to bridge the gap of the declining capture fisheries, targeting 1,000,000 tons of fish production from aquaculture. There is therefore need for technologies that aim at enhancing the production of fish in Uganda. The efficient method of water exchange is one of the innovations to increase the fish productivity in earthen ponds and tanks. This method is based on the principles of hydrostatic pressure and the water stratification. The results from the experiment gave improved water quality parameters. This enabled fish productivity to increase from 1.22 to 1.88 Kg per cubic meter. Adoption of this innovation can enable fish farmers increase the productivity by 54%. Key words: hydrostatic pressure; water exchange; stratification