Aquaculture Worker
What the work is
Performs routine tasks in breeding and raising fish and other aquatic stock.
Would you enjoy the work?
These are the main tasks in the official description. Mark how each one sounds to you.
- Feeds and grades fish, and monitors their growth
- Assists with farm layout and constructs nets, long-lines and cages
- Checks and looks after equipment and fish housing, and operates pumps and other equipment
- Tests and checks on water quality, and removes dead or dying fish
- Harvests fish and other aquatic stock, and sorts and packs it for transportation
- Restocks pens, pools, tanks, ponds, rivers and dams with juvenile fish
- Collects and records growth, production and water quality data
- May operate lifting equipment such as forklifts and small cranes
Try it
A simulation and a case study from this kind of work, set in a barramundi farm with ponds and tanks beside a cropping property, where one team looks after both. They are fictional.
The kind of days you could have
Good days
- Water tests at sunrise come back right and the fish are feeding well
- A harvest day when the crew is in sync and every fish is graded and packed on time
- A new pond is stocked and you can see the little fish already moving about
Hard days
- A pump or aerator fails in the night and you are the one on call
- Wet, hot, muddy work around the ponds in the middle of summer
- Recording a loss honestly when you know the boss will not like the number
Written by Career Calling as a general guide. Real roles vary by employer and place.
Work a mission
Step into a simulated workplace in this field, with a brief from your manager.
Description and tasks: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Occupation Standard Classification for Australia, 2024, Version 1.0 (opens another site), occupation 841331, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. The skill guide above is our plain English summary.