Automating Aquaponics Systems with Arduino – Part 1
With all the things that can go wrong and have gone wrong in the past, I have decided to automate my aquaponics system. It is currently semi-automated. By that I mean the flooding and draining of the grow bed is controlled by a programmable timer and the water temperature is controlled by a temperature controller with sensor and heating element. But that is how far it goes at this point. If any of these items fail are accidentally are turned off, disaster strikes as I have covered in my other blog post. I commute 65 miles to work and can’t check on things very frequently. In addition I travel quite a bit and it would be good to have some more piece of mind.
So here is what I have in mind. I am planning on using a micro-controller called “Arduino”. There are many versions and a ton of so-called “shields” available for the Arduino. Shields are expansion boards with specific functions that expand the capability of the Arduino. With the help of the
Arduino I will be able to create my own Aquaponics Controller the way I like it. This will allow me to incorporate the temperature control, flood and drain cycle into one small controller. I will add an LCD display and buttons for changing settings etc. In addition, I will also be able to monitor critical parameters, such as water level, water flow to and from the grow bed, water temperature, air pressure of my air pump, main power, water flow through my heating system, water flow through my filtration system and many more things. I will be adding a cell phone modem as well. That way the system can send me alarm notifications to wherever I am, anywhere in the world. I will also be able to query the system for anything that I want to know. There is some buzz in the technology world about this – they refer to this as the IoT – “The Internet of Things”. Useful little devices connected to the Internet for monitoring and control, other than PCs. The cool thing about Arduino is that it is really inexpensive and there is a very large community out there that provides help, if you need it. Of course, you’ll need to know how to program a bit. Arduino uses a C-like programming language. The programming environment is available free for download and comes with tons of examples to get going. It is quite the powerful little tool. I future posts I will describe in more detail how this all works and how it is coming together.