Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Just had a question about automation. Does anybody know where you can piece together a system instead of buying the one on line.(Kijani Grows Smart Aquaponics kit.) I think that system is going for about 5 or 600 for the kit. Just wondering if there was a way to do it for ourselfs. I would like to know the flow , ph, temp, simple things..

I think it was a Smart Aquaponics Arduino Shield board they were using. I dont know which board they were using

http://apduino.org/ Has some software and info on what arduino to purchase. You need some skills though to get it up and running.

Where do you get some of the sensors from.

What are you trying to measure?

Maybe ph, water and air temp, water flow, and maybe tank levels.

API test kit... a thermometer... and eye balls... will do all that... and more...

i fixing to be doing alot of traveling with my job. iwas tring to rig something up to help me when there is a problem with the system. thanks again.

Ah.. OK... so you need a pH dosing control system...an automated water top up system... a heater/chiller unit...

Better throw in a battery backup aeration system... in case of power outages...

SparkFun has lots of Ardiuno stuff. Here's a link to the PH sensor for Arduino: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10972

Looks like you can also connect to a Raspberry Pi.


You might be able to use one of these.. A bit cheaper but not out-of-the-box.

I set up an Arduino temperature and light logger without much trouble. Still trying to find time to integrate a Raspberry Pi into the system for remote monitoring and eventually some control, if needed.

That is my path too eventually. Monitoring first and then maybe automation.

Have any links on tutorials you used or are you a programmer? I'm a mechanical engineer and can usually hack my way through some stuff as long as I can find the info to learn from.

My R Pi is still waiting to be utilized for some neat projects like in AP. Just using it as a tinker device with XBMC on it right now.

Scientist here, not a programmer, but I can also hack things together given enough time and examples. I initially got an Arduino inventors kit from Sparkfun and worked through most of the examples there, then got some DS18B20 probes from Dealextreme and a logger shield from Adafruit and pretty much just "borrowed" as much code as I could find via google.

I just remembered that I posted some details here: viewtopic.php?f=50&t=11072&start=105

i guess what im looking for is monitoring not automation. i just want to know if the pump goes down or air pump goes down of ph gets out of wak. i was thinking maybe a ph ,flow meter, temp of water, and maybe water levels in sump, fish tank, and grow beds. nothing to fancy. i know nothing about shields and boards but i have an IT guy that might get around some of that. i was wondering if there was a website to order some of those sensors. thanks

if you're really nerdy about it, you can use reefing controllers. a bit on the high end of pricing, but aquarists use them all the time for their reef tanks.

Reefangel-Reefkeeper-Apex. do a google search, and make your own opinion they will all do what you want to do, just remember to shield it from the elements.