International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 11, Issue 7, July-2020 1622

ISSN 2229-5518

Arduino based Fish Monitoring System

Dr.A.Albert Raj, Dr.Selvan, Swasthik V K, Rakesh A, Saravanaraj D M.

Abstract—Fish monitoring system is essential because many people love to grow fishes as their pet in the home. In our day-to-day life, it is difficult to
monitor the aquarium tank regularly. As a consequence, it causes mortality of the fishes. The quality of water might be the main issue. It mainly
depends upon parameters such as carbonates, ammonia, nitrates, salt, pH, temperature, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, etc. To maintain these
parameters, various sensors are used in the fish monitoring system. This will increase the production of fishes and decrease mortality. Many
researchers had proposed various methods for maintaining the water quality in the aquarium and the fish ponds. The main purpose of this paper is to
review the sensors used in the fish monitoring system and the critical comparison of various sensors with other research papers.

Index Terms: Arduino, Fish, Internet of Things, Arduino UNO, sensors, Fish feeder.

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I.INTRODUCTION
The advances in monitoring, automation technology and water is a panacea for many pond problems. For proper
aquaculture research have led to the development of water monitoring, adequate equipment and labor must be
production technologies that have improved the quality available with extensive experience in the problems
of fish ponds and fish production. Quality of water involved in obtaining accurate information to obtain

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greatly influences the growth of aqua cultural objects complete and accurate results The purpose of this article is
which affects the production of fishes. Fishes are the main to design and implement a low-cost system to monitor the
engine that restores the water bodies. Fish integrates the process of supplying fish and water quality in aquaculture
functioning of lower organic process levels and are tanks. The system consists of sensors that measure various
sensitive to physical system attributes (e.g., hydrologic water quality parameters (such as temperature, pH, Water
connectivity). The fish area is ecologically and culturally level, turbidity, or conductivity, among others), of the tank
important for sound recovery, as well as for the cultural conditions (such as illumination and water level), and of
heritage of its inhabitants. And overall, fish survival the fish feeding behavior.
depends mainly on the environment in which they live.
Imbalances in the atmosphere must be monitored to allow 2. PROBLEM DEFINITION
them to survive Fish from lakes and ponds can die due to Overfeeding is the main mistake made by fish owners
several reasons, which may include because unused foods will contaminate water. In this
• Natural predation, Old age or natural injuries project, we use a servomotor and a screw to easily
• Starvation, Suffocation implement intelligent feeding that allows the fish owner
• Pollution, Diseases or parasites to enjoy manual feeding remotely while the fish are not
Continued automatic monitoring of water parameters in being underfed nor overfed. Issues on water quality in
real-time will not only result in high-quality aquaculture fish farming systems vary widely. An optimal balance of
management, but will also provide accurate experimental nutrients and other factors like temperature, hardness, pH
data that will help optimize the farming process, reduce and turbidity is required to maintain the heath of fish.
farming costs and improve farming efficiency. The fish is Temperature affects water quality, and the metabolism of
susceptible to disease and other problems due to poor fish changes as the temperature raises PH also affects fish
water quality in ponds, and daily monitoring of pond growth. Lower pH levels can accelerate the metals release
from rocks and sediments, which can affect fish
———————————————— metabolism and their ability to absorb water through the
 Dr.Albert raj is currently working in Sri Krishna College of Engineering gills. Dissolved oxygen is one of the important parameters
and Technology as Dean Academics. E-mail: albert@skcet.ac.in in fish farming. Low levels of dissolved oxygen have a
 Dr.Selvan is the head of Mectronics in Sri Krishna College of Engineering
and Technology E-mail: selvan@skcet.ac.in negative impact on the respiration and metabolic activity
 Swasthik V ,Rakesh A, Saravanaraj D M is currently perusing his third of fish, causing a high number of fatalities. In our system,
year in Mactronics at Sri Krishna College of Engineering Email:
16eumt101@skcet.ac.in, 16eumt077@ skcet.ac.in, 17eumt518@ skcet.ac.in we focused primarily on those parameters on which fish
health depends.

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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 11, Issue 7, July-2020 1623
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GSM-based fish monitoring system [7] using IOT

explains about the fish monitoring and uses various
sensors for monitoring the fish aquarium tank. The
sensors like pH, Water level sensors are used to sense the
pH level and level of the water. It will indicate the signal
3. EXISTING TECHNOLOGIES through buzzer and LED. The control of this system is
done by the Arduino board.
We investigated many related technologies that are
involved in the fish monitoring system.
An Intelligent Fish Tank Control System Based on
Yi-Bing Lin et al [1] developed an IoT based Mini
Internet of Things Cloud Computing Platform is
aquarium system called Fishtalk which used several
designed in[8]. The author used only water level sensors
sensors and actuators. The sensors used were to find the
(Water Sensor), light sensor, temperature sensor
temperature, pH, Electrical Conductivity, Dissolved
(DS18B20) and focused much on the Internet of Things
Oxygen, and total dissolved solvents. However, the
Cloud Computing Platform and hence he did not use
Fishtalk system did not have an ammonium sensing
other sensors such as turbidity, dissolved oxygen, etc.
sensor and a turbidity sensor which is a measure of the
In[9] the author focused much on the feeding process
extent to which water loses transparency due to the
presence of suspended particles the sensors used are water level sensors and illumination
A Cost-Efficient Automated Pisciculture Assistance sensors. Sensors to measure temperature and dissolved
System Using the Internet of Things(IoT) is delevoped oxygen are also used in this system.
in[2] which used sensors such as temperature, pH, Real-time monitoring of water quality in the IoT

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environment is developed in [10]. The system has several
turbidity and to measure the water damage. Here the
sensors to measure physical and chemical parameters of
author designed this system as a cost-efficient one, he
the water that makes the total system cost effective.
did not have any sensor to measure Ammonia which is
Smart monitoring and controlled aquaponic system-
also dangerous for fishes if it crosses the lower limit.
based on IoT is developed in [11]. Core Sensors used in this
This system also does not have a system to automate
system are the Humidity sensor and Temperature sensor.
the feeding process.
Humidity is a measure of the amount of water vapor
A distributed IoT system for the monitoring of water
contained in the air and the value of the sensor can be
quality in aquaculture using three basic sensors such as
accessed through smart phone applications and websites
pH, temperature and dissolved oxygen [3]. This system
from anywhere with the Internet connection.
failed to have sensors to measure Ammonia and
In the Intelligent Fish Tank Control System Based on
turbidity which are also important for the life span of
the Internet of Things Cloud Computing Platform [12] a
fishes. Guandong Gao et al[4] developed an intelligent
cloud-based platform for the Internet of Things (IoT)
IoT-based control and traceability system to forecast and
family intelligent fish tank control system using the
maintain water quality in freshwater fish farms.
sensors are defined.
The sensor used in the system is water level sensors.
The sensors the author used were to measure water
It senses the level of the water and using the pump the
temperature, water electrical conductivity, water level,
water in the tank increases automatically by using
pH value, water body turbidity, and dissolved oxygen. Arduino Mega 2560.
However, this system did not have any sensor to
A. Zaini et al [13] developed the IOT based
measure Ammonia.
Monitoring and managing Nutrient Film Technique
A water monitoring IoT system for fish farming ponds
(NFT) Aquaponic and it records water pH, , ammonia
by using basic sensors such as temperature and water
gas level, water temperature and water depth through
level sensors is analyzed in[5]. The author did not include
the pH sensor, temperature sensors, ammonia gas
other basic measuring parameters such as pH and
sensors, and ultrasonic sensors. Depth sensors can be
dissolved oxygen.
implemented to retrieve the water depth level on the
A GSM-based fish monitoring system using IoT is
Aquaponic pond and the ammonia gas sensor
developed in [6]. The sensors used were a temperature
implemented to extract the ammonia gas content in the
sensor, pH sensor, and water level sensor. This system
aquaponic pond by adding and compensating value
does not have a sensor to measure another important
base on the differs of the error value.
parameter such as Dissolved oxygen. Sensors to measure
T. Abinaya et al [14] proposed a multiple sensors
Turbidity, Electrical conductivity and Total dissolved
used to continuously monitor the parameters such as pH
solvents are also not available.
level, temperature, foul smell detector, Ammonia
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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 11, Issue 7, July-2020 1624
ISSN 2229-5518

content, dissolved oxygen, and water level. In the which notifies the end-user when the water drops below
system, MQ4 ELECTRONIC NOSE is used as a foul our desired limit.
smell detector sensor. This system at this stage communicates to the end-user
In[15] PH value, and water level sensing modules are through the Thing speak and hence provide the person
incorporated in this monitoring system. The temperature correct data to act upon. The buzzer, which sends sound,
sensing module uses the PT100 sensor. The authors used signals whenever some of the measured parameters goes
various controllers and transmitting devices to transmit out of the desired range locally.
the data sensed by the sensor for further processing. A
study to create access and control of pH level and
temperature through the Internet of Things (IoT) in
Automated Aquaponic system using PH sensor and
Temperature sensor is given[16]. Unlike other article this
system implemented an ultrasonic sensor to know when 5. PROPOSED SOLUTIONS
to activate the pump for water refilling. 5.1.Arduino
The microcontroller based Arduino Uno(ATmega328P) is
4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY based on the datasheet. It has 14 digital i/p and o/p pins ,
a 16 MHz crystal, 6 analog inputs, a USB connection, a
The current system includes the Arduino UNO board power jack, an ICSP header and a reset button. It contains
which is one of the many small board computers, that everything needed to support the microcontroller; simply
consumes very low power and it is widely available. connect it to a computer with a USB cable or power it

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Connected to this control unit are various sensors for with a AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get started.. You
monitoring some of the parameters which can be labeled can tinker with your UNO without worrying too much
as input units, actuators such as fan that can be labeled as about doing something wrong, worst case scenario you
output units, executive units that affect some parameters, can replace the chip for a few dollars and start over again.
such as the heater and some interactive elements such as ”Uno” means one in Italian and was chosen to mark the
buzzer. release of Arduino Software (IDE) 1.0. The Uno board
The IoT smart monitoring system includes several (figure 2) and version 1.0 of Arduino Software (IDE) were
sensors to sense the environment and based on the the reference versions of Arduino, now evolved to newer
readings from these sensors, the user can make important
decisions for improving the quality and quantity of the
fish.

Temperature is the deciding factor for each process

shown in the aquarium. This not only affects the
development and growth of other plants and animals in
the tank, but also regulates the oxygen content in the
water. The ideal temperature for tropical fish is 25 ° C and
allows deviations at 2 ° C and for fish. The regulation or
heating of the water can be done by an external Relay,
which receives the control signal from the board and then
turns on or off the heater. Also in this parameter there is a Fig 1 Uno board
fan. The fan is used for cooling down the water if it is releases. The Uno board is the first in a series of USB
beyond the normal temperature. Fan when it is switched Arduino boards, and the reference model for the Arduino
on keeping above the water level, it causes the upper platform; for an extensive list of current, past or outdated
surface of the water to evaporate and hence it cools
boards see the Arduino index of boards .
down. The turbidity sensor contains a light transmitter
and receiver. At clear waters, light scattering is minimum
5.2 Node MCU
and so the light receiver receives the most amount of light.
As turbidity of the water increases, the light receiver
This system has NodeMCU which is located in the middle
receives less and less light. The sensor triggers when the
of the system built on the ESP8266-12E Wi-Fi module. It is
light received is below a certain threshold.
a free and highly integrated system that can be configured
The IoT monitoring and control system measures the
to connect to IoT devices, solutions have been
water level in the pond using a simple ultrasonic sensor,
implemented in three phases, 1)interaction with arduino,
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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 11, Issue 7, July-2020 1625
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2)fish design and 3) connection to a perpetual recovery

server. 6. CRITERIA FOR ASSESSING
SOLUTIONS
5.3. Interfacing with Arduino The proposed solutions assessed based on the it’s
At first, we interfaced sensors such as temperature, pH,
applicability, suitability for remote locations and form
ultrasonic and turbidity with the Arduino UNO board as factor of the final product. The entire circuit diagram is
in the figure 2. We found the results for the same in the shown in figure 4
serial monitor.
.

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Figure 2 Arduino UNO boardand interfacing with
sensors

5.4. Fish Feeder part Figure 4. Arduino index circuit boards

Secondly, we designed a 3D model(figure 3)for the fish
feeder and successfully printed it using a 3D printer. This The temperature sensor, turbidity sensor, ultrasonic
feeder uses a servo motor to drop the fish food in the sensor are connected to it. The temperature sensor is a one
water. wire waterproof temperature sensor that measures
temperature with a minimal amount of hardware and
wiring. This sensor uses a digital protocol to send accurate
temperature readings directly to the NodeMCU without
the need of an analog to digital converter or additional
hardware.
An analog pH meter is used here; it has an LED which
works as the power indicator, a bayonet neill– concelman
(BNC) connector and pH sensor interface. To use the pH
sensor, it needs to be connected with a BNC connector
Calibration should be performed when used in a new
environment. A water safety sensor was used to detect
water quality with turbidity measurement. It uses light
for detecting the floating particles in the water by
measuring the light transmittance and scattering rate. As
Figure 3 printed 3 D model
TSS increases, the turbidity of fluids increases.

5.5. User Interface

Since fish monitoring should be done on a remote basis, 7. ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
We implemented interfacing the sensors with Node MCU, The proposed system was successfully developed using
a wireless sensor network to transfer the data acquired the proposed hardware, software and architecture. The
from the machine to an interface called ”thingspeak”. This data is transmitted regularly, without errors and with a
interface displays the data in the required format such a very small latency. The system was tested using the
digital display, analog display, and using guage types, system in a local network.
thus making it easier for the user to clearly identify the There is the box with its four sensors, the Node MCU
output of the system. and the and the PCB. This box is placed near the tank to
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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 11, Issue 7, July-2020 1626
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which it will be measured its water quality and the three

sensors are immersed in the tank. This 15 seconds counter ACKNOWLEDGMENT
is used to take the measurements every 5 seconds. A The authors acknowledge support from the DST-
request is sent to a sensor to take the measurement and NIMAT Sponsored IoT Cloud Entrepreneurship program
when the request of each sensor is sent, the sensed in IIIT- Kottayam.
information is sent to the application. The complete
implementation of the circuit and its companion app is REFERENCES
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