The Drought Continues

The photo above was taken October 20, 2013, when our newly dug small pond was full of water after the ample rains of that year.
We stocked the small pond with Tilapia and colorful Carp, hoping they would grow and that a healthy pond ecology would develop. Our much larger pond had about three meters of water in the deepest part back then, with a capacity to take two or even three meters more.

Unfortunately a period of drought came along and by April of the next year, the water in the smaller pond was nearly gone. Our fish were definitely in distress. We decided to move them to our large pond where at that time, there was still plenty of water.
Our friend Na Sit came to help us net the little fellows and I lugged bucket loads of them to their new home.
We had already stocked the large pond with a kind of catfish which our sister-in-law had provided.
None of the newly-introduced fish died so we felt happy that all the fish could adapt to living together. By the way, Na sit is not wearing boots in the picture. That's grey mud from the pond bottom.

An earlier post about the drought can be found here.

As the drought continued though, the water level in the main pond became lower and lower until it was reduced to a green soup, knee-deep or less.

Ael's dad, Poa Dao decided to get his friend Poa Tan to help him catch all the fish and transport them to a small holding pond which he had made at his house. We were all surprised at how many fish remained in what was left of the water and at how big they were.

Dad was also surprised and delighted to find a good-sized Asian snakehead fish, pla chon, Channa striata. We didn't intentionally introduce this predator among the grazers in our pond but perhaps eggs were clinging to water weed that we had thrown in from time to time. It's a good illustration of how resilient and persistent the innumerable forms of life can be in their struggle to survive and to reproduce.

We had been assuming that our catfish were "pla sawai" which is a common kind of shark catfish but when we caught them we found them to be "pla buk", giant Mekong catfish; Pangasianodon gigas. These fish can grow very big; up to 3 meters in length and 200 kilograms in weight; the world's largest freshwater fish.
This species is listed as critically endangered, its range in the Mekong basin severely reduced. The Thai government, however, has been breeding them and making them available to people who want to preserve and propagate this valuable species.

We grilled one of the catfish and found it delicious, smooth textured and mild with very rich fat under the skin. Dad made tom yam pla with it, stewed with a mildly spicy broth which, for me, was truly world class!

While this period of prolonged drought has not been in accordance with our plans and wishes, it has been an excellent occasion for learning.


We need to improve our understanding of pond ecology so that our ponds will be able to support aquatic life indefinitely. I feel pleasantly surprised about the pond being able to support growth and even fatness in so many fish while I thought it was ecologically underdeveloped.
We have already put snails and razor clams into the pond ecosystem and we hope eventually to have a thriving population of shrimp there as well. It all depends on the rains!

Diagram from FAO: