BANGLI - Thousands of fish raised by residents in floating net cages (KJA) at several points in Lake Batur, Bangli Regency, Bali, were found dead.
The deaths of thousands of fish belonged to 22 cultivators. A total of 11.950 kilograms of fish died with the loss of farmers estimated at hundreds of millions.
"The price per kilogram in the field for consumption fish is IDR 25 thousand", said Head of the Agriculture, Food Security and Fisheries (PKP) Office of Bangli Regency, Bali, I Wayan Sarma when contacted Wednesday, March 3.
He explained that the death of the thousands of fish originated from the change in the color of Lake Batur's water which occurred at several points, on Sunday, February 28.
This occurs when rain and strong winds around Lake Batur for three consecutive days, which cause an eruption or an increase in water mass (upwelling).
The sulfur explosion that occurs causes all pollutants to be mixed and endangers the life of the biota in the lake and the sulfate and phosphorus that bind oxygen in lake water. As a result, the oxygen content in lake water in the area around the sulfur eruption decreased drastically.
Then, this situation makes the fish try to get more oxygen and come to the surface. Fish that are kept in cages or nets will of course have limited movement to get water quality with a better oxygen content compared to fish that live freely in lakes.
"The cause is the phenomenon of upwelling, the stirring of surface water with the bottom water of the lake. The water rises and causes sulfur which causes the fish to die", he added.
Sarma said that this phenomenon occurs every year between January and February. However, last year did not happen.
"Farmers and fish farmers there, they are familiar with such conditions. Only before (it happens) we keep reminding that January to February is an estimate of this phenomenon. They have memorized it, therefore they regulate the net spread", he said.
"I have given a circular last January. If it is necessary to harvest early, yes, harvest earlier to reduce losses. But, they also speculate because this is an annual event but like last year it did not happen too big", continued Sarma.
Usually, this phenomenon will occur in about 4 days. However, on Monday, March 1, the sulfur was not spitting out.
"It's starting to back to normal because the rain has started to decrease and the winds have been reduced. Yesterday, we did data collection and two days ago we measured the water indicator", he said.
In Lake Batur, there are hundreds of farmers or cultivators and 9.300 floating net cages (KJA).
The Head of Housing and Regional Office (Kadis PKP) appealed to cultivators to delay stocking fish and providing limited or sufficient fish feed until the weather conditions were better.
The PKP office will coordinate with related agencies including community group organizations and the Association of Fishery Practitioners (APP) to help disseminate information and inform developments around the lake area.
"Conducted an inspection of the water quality by the Integrated Fish Health Post (Posikandu) Team of the Department of Agriculture, Food Security and Fisheries of Bangli Regency in several locations of sulfur eruptions", said Sarma.
The English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and French versions are automatically generated by the AI. So there may still be inaccuracies in translating, please always see Indonesian as our main language. (system supported by DigitalSiber.id)
