Has anyone created a full Raspberry Pi Aquarium monitoring/control system?

[njtiger aquariums]

You should totally do it . Its easy, very rewarding and good for STEM education. Forget the whole controller, I was so stoked to see the first time I was able to blink an LED . And fact is controlling an equipment/relay is exactly same as blinking an LED. Adafruit has lots of useful tutorials for beginners and you can learn piece by piece.
Let us know if we can be of any help

Agree here. That one thing I love about one of my newer role at work (AV/IT) where I get to code AV equipment. Its nice being able to write code for a button and see a bunch of equipment respond when that button is pressed

 

[Joseph Martine]

 

[Ranjib]

Very nice. Thats a grafana dashboard ?

 

[Joseph Martine]

Yep - plus everything is accessible on my iPhone - no extra coding

 

[jjduen]

Its progressing slowly, Once the fundamentals were working it now runs 24/7, and any spare time I play some more....

I would like to get a copy of the open source and hardward listing when you make available.

 

[MartinH]

@Joseph Martine Hi, what hardware do you use for connecting the sensors / probes?
I use an RPI3 since more than a year stable with node red, but I only measure the temperature and the humidity....
pH and conductivity would be nice.

Thanks

 

[Joseph Martine]

@Joseph Martine Hi, what hardware do you use for connecting the sensors / probes?
I use an RPI3 since more than a year stable with node red, but I only measure the temperature and the humidity....
pH and conductivity would be nice.

Thanks

That was early on and I went ahead and bit the bullet and went with PH and EC probes off of ebay but used the Atlas Scientific hardware

https://www.atlas-scientific.com/product_pages/components/tentacle-t3.html

The big issue is getting to a smooth reading. There are several causes. One is the stray readings due to the sensors. Another is just the variability of what is being read. The other big one is what is referred to as electrical isolation. If you look at the graph above of WaterLevel (the one with the red and green lines) you can see that the green one is pretty jagged. This is because of a combination of the first two. It is normal. I have since learned better about smoothing algorithms to make this line look like the red on one above. It is isolated in that the green one is on a completely separate circuit - no influences from fluctuation in current caused by other parts. If I had EC and PH not isolated, everytime I took an reading on one, the other would show a spike/dip for the duration and then return to normal. Isolation can be achieved through separate add on boards which i have yet to experiment with. I have successfully taken EC readings with an electrical device cord - the kind with a figure 8 plug on one end / two holes - and just cut the plugin off of the other end then hooked to GIOP on an Arduino (5v instead of 3v) But, that is all i could run on the Arduino at a time. PH is a bit more complicated, but i had successfully used a used $35 Vernier brand PH board and sensor by just hooking the output right into both Arduino and RPI's. After putzing around for awhile and not getting what i was expecting out of them I went with store-bought. it was $105 for the isolation board, $60 for the EC controller and $40 for the PH controller. (plus the probes i already had.)


I know this response is a bit rambly and no where near complete in details, but I hope this gives you a bit of an overview of where I have been, some things i still think are worth looking into and I would up doing.

 

[jjduen]

I would love a copy of your code for this project. It is exactly as I have planned in my mind.

 

[Joseph Martine]

I would love a copy of your code for this project. It is exactly as I have planned in my mind.

I am starting to collect everything out on Github:

https://github.com/diverjoe/FishNet
https://github.com/diverjoe/FishNet/wiki

I am a freshwater guy, but most will translate directly. I know that there are a few things you guys dose and have sensor for that are not used in the fresh side

This is based on Node Red running on a RPI. There are some folks over on Plantedtank.net that are EE's and are going to pick up the banner and make it cleaner and more pretty from the circuits side. Everything is free and I hope that you would consider just adding one or two things yourself. Sometimes that just simply comes in the form of questions.

Cheers!

 

[Ranjib]

I am starting to collect everything out on Github:

https://github.com/diverjoe/FishNet
https://github.com/diverjoe/FishNet/wiki

I am a freshwater guy, but most will translate directly. I know that there are a few things you guys dose and have sensor for that are not used in the fresh side

This is based on Node Red running on a RPI. There are some folks over on Plantedtank.net that are EE's and are going to pick up the banner and make it cleaner and more pretty from the circuits side. Everything is free and I hope that you would consider just adding one or two things yourself. Sometimes that just simply comes in the form of questions.

Cheers!

Thank you for sharing the code

 

[Trickman2]

I don't see the cost savings.

Why tag along if you are so negative and repetitive?

 

[jjduen]

I would like to get a copy of the open source and hardward listing when you make available.

i lost the code and information during a PC crash. Would you please resend to me again.

John

 

[rsuplido]

Some new WiFi development. Check out this new OTA flash tool to flash Tuya devices with say Tasmota: https://github.com/ct-Open-Source/tuya-convert

Flashing demo:

Most if not all of these cheap Tuya devices (as well as Sonoff devices) use ESP8266 and you can really open them up and add sensors (temperature, humidity, etc). The opensource Tasmota firmware will let you map the sensors based on the pins you use and transmit/set states via MQTT.

This is more popular in Home Automation with the Home Assistant app but for the reef hobby, you can just use a Raspberry Pi running Raspbian Stretch Lite with Node-RED, MQTT, and InfluxDB + Grafana. If you want your system more robust, run it on a mini PC like an Intel NUC or a Mac Mini running Ubuntu, and might as well run your whole home automation as well as Plex.

 

[3DReefer]

I am actually in the process now of putting together the housing for a Reff Pi/ReefBerry Pi system, all in all it looks like the pi based systems will work well. I am desiging my physical layout to have two seperate units, one that will house most of the probes, sensors, power relays etc,,, this unit will connect to another that will house the raspberry pi and a 7 inch touch screen, you will be able to access the system from anywhere, via internet, but will also have the touch screen available if you just need to walk up and do something.

 

[3DReefer]

I am actually in the process now of putting together the housing for a Reff Pi/ReefBerry Pi system, all in all it looks like the pi based systems will work well. I am desiging my physical layout to have two seperate units, one that will house most of the probes, sensors, power relays etc,,, this unit will connect to another that will house the raspberry pi and a 7 inch touch screen, you will be able to access the system from anywhere, via internet, but will also have the touch screen available if you just need to walk up and do something.

 

[3DReefer]

I am actually in the process now of putting together the housing for a Reff Pi/ReefBerry Pi system, all in all it looks like the pi based systems will work well. I am desiging my physical layout to have two seperate units, one that will house most of the probes, sensors, power relays etc,,, this unit will connect to another that will house the raspberry pi and a 7 inch touch screen, you will be able to access the system from anywhere, via internet, but will also have the touch screen available if you just need to walk up and do something.

 

[Flitzi]

I am starting to collect everything out on Github:

https://github.com/diverjoe/FishNet
https://github.com/diverjoe/FishNet/wiki

I am a freshwater guy, but most will translate directly. I know that there are a few things you guys dose and have sensor for that are not used in the fresh side

This is based on Node Red running on a RPI. There are some folks over on Plantedtank.net that are EE's and are going to pick up the banner and make it cleaner and more pretty from the circuits side. Everything is free and I hope that you would consider just adding one or two things yourself. Sometimes that just simply comes in the form of questions.

Cheers!

Great project Joseph Martine,

what Version of Node-Red; Node... you have used?
Node „i2c and pca9685“ not compatible with the current version of Node and Node-Red . :-(

Thanks, Daniel

 

[Joseph Martine]

I am running the latest - always. I am using all the technologies you mentioned. How can I help?

 

[Joseph Martine]

I am using the latest - always. I am using all of the technologies mentioned. How can I help?

 

[Flitzi]

Sorry my english is very bad :-(

I've build your project in Node-Red. After a lot of error's i have create the project in Node-Red.. very cool, extreme detailed...makes a lot of fun to explore your flows.
At the moment it looks very confused, but it works.

The ESP NodeMcu v3 are very sensitiv, but also this is possible

My question is, which Waterlevel Sensor you use?
I can't find out what hardware you use (i2c)?!?!

Do you have 2-way-comunication (wired/ESP)?
Is it possible to get a picture of your real circuit?

I'm using a reed-contact for the warter-level at the moment, but in future i will use the infrared-water-level-sensor.

Thanks to you.

 

[Flitzi]

Ir-water-lev

• Flitzi
• Apr 30, 2019

Chaos

• Flitzi
• Apr 30, 2019

Sorry my english is very bad :-(

I've build your project in Node-Red. After a lot of error's i have create the project in Node-Red.. very cool, extreme detailed...makes a lot of fun to explore your flows.
At the moment it looks very confused, but it works.

The ESP NodeMcu v3 are very sensitiv, but also this is possible

My question is, which Waterlevel Sensor you use?
I can't find out what hardware you use (i2c)?!?!

Do you have 2-way-comunication (wired/ESP)?
Is it possible to get a picture of your real circuit?

I'm using a reed-contact for the warter-level at the moment, but in future i will use the infrared-water-level-sensor.

Thanks to you.