Implementation of Aquaponics Within IoT Framework

Muhammad Fasih Uddin Butt, Maryam Hammad, Moaz Ahsen and Muneeb Ansir

COMSATS University Islamabad, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Islamabad, Pakistan

[email protected], [email protected], [email protected],

[email protected]

Abstract- With the surge in population and the sharing data with the users. It is a network of
demand of the food increasing, urban farming is
physical devices communicating with one another
rising steadily over the years in terms of popularity.
Farmers and scientists have been trying to find ways via a cloud. IoT not only has technical, but also
to develop healthier and sustainable choices for social and economic significance and has numerous
farming and have come up with various solutions applications [1]. One such application, that we will
including aquaponics. Aquaponics is changing the focus on, is the agriculture sector.
way that the food is grown. This paper deals with
integrating Aquaponics with Internet of Things (IoT). There has been a paradigm shift in the 21 st century
This will ensure that the yield can be maximized,
human error minimized and preventative actions can towards urban farming due to the growing
be taken for unpredictable hazards. With IoT, the population [5]. However, traditional farming and
system can be easily monitored and controlled from agriculture methods are not enough. Not only are
any remote location. In addition, the mobile the natural resources declining rapidly, but the
application allows the user to either control the
system by one self or to let it run automatically, as availability of arable land is diminishing as well.
the system is both autonomous and semi-autonomous. Moreover, it is estimated that by 2050, food
The sensors placed in the Aquaponics system resources need to be increased by 75%, to meet the
continuously monitor the system and the data is demands of the population [4]. To cater to all these
stored on Google Spreadsheets where it can be used
demands, integrating aquaponics with IoT seems
for further analysis.
like a feasible solution.
Keywords- IoT, Aquaponics, Sustainable
Farming. Aquaponics is a technique of incorporating both
aquaculture and hydroponics. ‘Aqua’ is a Latin
I. Introduction word, meaning water and comes from aquaculture,
which is the farming of fishes. ‘Ponics’ comes from
Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging concept that
hydroponics, which is the farming of plants, in
has several applications in many sectors. From
water, using chemicals as nutrients. In this system,
smart cities to smart cars, and from smart healthcare
water from the aquarium is fed to the plants where
systems to smart homes, IoT promises to transform
the by-products are broken down by nitrification
the way we live [1]. IoT can be defined as
bacteria into nitrates and nitrites and used up as
objects/devices communicating among themselves
nutrients. The water is then filtered and circulated
without any need of intervention [8]. It refers to the
back to the fish aquarium [2].
billions of physical devices around the world that
are now connected to the internet [3], collecting and IoT based aquaponics system assists in continuously
monitoring and analyzing the whole system. IoT has
embedded sensors, connected with physical objects
which are controlled by a central processing unit
[7]. Not only that, the sensors can also communicate
with the user, thus introducing a two way
communication between the user and devices,
through a network [6]. This system takes corrective
actions to maintain a balance between both species.
The data collected from the sensors is then stored
and further used for analysis. This data helps in
maximizing the yield, reduces the risk and
eliminates the need of manual intervention.

The proposed solution monitors real time data along

with the parameters like, room temperature,
humidity, temperature of the aquarium and pH. This
whole system can be remotely controlled from Figure 1: Basic Aquaponic System
anywhere by using a mobile application. In case of
any breach in the threshold levels, an alert will be Courtesy: http://www.projectfeed1010.com/what-
sent to the user to take an action to maintain the isaquaponics/
optimum range. The whole system is self-monitored
as well as semi-autonomous. The collected data is
then stored and can be further analysed to give an III. Proposed System Design and its
insight on the parameters important for the efficient Implementation
growth and maintenance of such a system. A. Design

II. Existing Systems The system consists of a fish tank, 12 standard

goldfish, a 4-cubic-foot grow bed filled with gravel,
Aquaponic farms have been gaining popularity in a fountain pump, and a filter box. This system runs
recent years. There has been a rapid increase in with external inputs: electricity for the pump, an
backyard aquaponic farming and small scale LED grow light and fish food for our goldfish. The
aqauponic farms. However, all these systems are prototype is an indoor grown system; the first layer
manual and need constant monitoring and is that of the LED panel. This panel mimics the sun
supervision to get the desired results. Due to this and gives off optimum light for the growth of plants
reason, there are difficulties in adopting this way of and the process of photosynthesis. The second or
farming for commercial purposes and on a large middle layer is of the plant bed. Here, the plants are
scale. The proposed system not only targets urban grown in a rock filled bed. The third or last layer is
farming, but also the end user requirements, the fish filled tank. It is a 25 gallon tank. The fish
ensuring a user-friendly system interaction. Shown tank is like the heart of the framework, giving both
in figure 1 is a basic aquaponic system. water and manure to the plants. The fish faeces
provide nitrate for the plants while the plants filter
and give clean water back to the fish tank. This
depicts a symbiotic relationship between the plants
and the fishes.

There are numerous sensors and actuator devices

which are connected to the system. The aquarium
contains a pH sensor, a temperature sensor, a water
heater, an oxygen supplier, a water pump and a fish switch on or off a device. This whole framework is
feeder. The plant bed, on the other hand, contains a monitored continuously and controlled by a mobile
humidity and temperature sensor. The light bed phone. The mobile phone has an application
panel, along with the actuator devices like water designed to run with our aquaponics system which
heater, water pump, oxygen supplier is connected to displays real-time data. There are various buttons on
a relay, from where they can be switched on or off. the application to control the actuator devices, to
achieve an optimum running system. In case of an
B. Implementation anomaly, the user will be alerted by a notification.
In an aquaponics system the water containing fish In addition, the mobile application has a link which
faeces, from the fish tank is pumped to the plant bed takes the user to the database where all the previous
where plants are grown in water. The plants use data is being stored. The database being used is
nitrates from the waste and in return filter the water. Google Spreadsheets. Since the whole system is
The water is then returned to the aquarium through semi-autonomous, it can take decisions and actions
the holes, constructed in the plant bed, via a pipe. itself, in case the user is absent.
The pump is controlled by a microcontroller C. Block Diagram
through relays. It is kept ON for 15 minutes (which
is enough to keep the fish tank clean) after every 4 The block diagram of the whole system is shown in
hours. In this way, water is recycled and through the figure 2.
use of this control mechanism energy is being
saved, making the system energy efficient. To
produce a very high yield of vegetables on a small
area, an environment optimal for plant growth has
been created. With the use of surface mounted
LEDs, which emit light at ideal wavelength for
plant growth, the system is optimizing night and
day cycles allowing the plant to grow 2.5 times
faster than the usual rate. The LEDs that are being
used are of red and blue colour at a ratio of 7:5,
respectively. This forms a light of pink colour,
which is optimum for photosynthesis, hence
enhancing the growth of plants.

Numerous sensors placed in the system take values Figure 2: Block Diagram
from their respective environments and send them
to the microcontroller, NodeMCU. The IV. Hardware
microcontroller then sends these values to the
mobile application, via the cloud. These values are 1) ESP8266
also stored on a database, which, in this case, is ESP8266 is a microchip that consists of a Wifi
Google Spreadsheet. In case of any abnormality, the module, Analog-to-Digital Converter and
mobile application alerts the user to take an multiple analog and digital pins. The speed of
appropriate action, by turning on or off the actuator processing is 160 MHz and compared to some
devices. The actuator devices i.e. water pump, light other microcontrollers, such as Raspberry pi, it
bed, heater and oxygen supplier, are connected by a is cost efficient. The pin configuration of
relay to the microcontroller. When an action is ESP8266 is shown in figure 3.
taken, the microcontroller triggers the relay to either
 Figure 4: Top View of Relay Module
Courtesy:https://www.lankatronics.com/module
s-sensors/relay-modules/5v-four-4-channel-
Figure 3: Pin configuration of ESP8266 relay-module.html
Courtesy:https://iotbytes.wordpress.com/nodem
cu-pinout/
3) Sensors
Various sensors have been integrated in the
2) Relay Module
system. These are the following:
Four modules in our project are driven from AC
power source. It is needed in our project to
a. pH Meter (Sku: Sen0161)
switch these modules after a specific time
period. Therefore, a four-channel relay module, Shown in figure 5 is an analogue pH meter. It
as shown in figure 4, is used which can drive has a BNC connector and PH2.0 sensor
and switch four AC power sources at the same interface. You can simply associate the pH
time. Following are the key features of this sensor with BNC connector, and connect the
module: PH2.0 interface to any analogue input on the
 Four channel Relay with opto couplers controller to read the pH value.
which provide isolation to the logic circuit
 Operating voltage: 5V
 Can switch up to 250 V AC & 30 V DC.
 Maximum Current Rating: 10 A at the
output.
SRD 05V DC operated relay modules are used
with two opto couplers. The usage of opto
coupler is to ensure that no damage is done to
Figure 5: pH sensor
the digital logic circuitry due to reverse current
in the circuit. Courtesy:https://www.robotshop.com/ca/en/gravity-
analog-ph-meter-kit.html

b. Water temperature sensor (DS18B20)

DS18B20, as shown in figure 6, is a one wire
temperature sensor with a precision of 9-12 bits.
The range is from -55℃ to +125 ℃ (+-0.5℃).
It has a unique 64-bit serial code. The DS18B20
 can derive power directly from the data line. easier to retrace the steps and correct the error.
The power supply range is 3.0V to 5.5V. When we started getting the data, we had to send it
to a cloud. For that purpose, Firebase was used as a
cloud server. Firebase is a mobile platform provided
by Google to help develop applications. It has a
time delay of only 2-5 seconds between updating
the values, compared to ThingSpeak, which has a
time delay of 15-20 seconds. Using ThingSpeak
can prove to be a major drawback for IoT based
projects that analyse real-time data.
Figure 6: One wire temperature sensor
Firebase acts as a cloud. It has a two way
Courtesy: http://www.datanab.com/sensors/1wire-
communication:
temperature-sensors.php
1. The data goes from the microcontroller to
Firebase and then from Firebase to IoT mobile
c. Temperature and Humidity Sensor (DHT 22) app.
DHT 22 is both a temperature and humidity 2. From IoT mobile app, the data again goes to the
sensor. It is a digital sensor with a 1-wire bus. It cloud and from there back to the
has an operating range of 3.3-5.5V and a microcontroller.
temperature range of -40~80°C. The humidity
range is 0-100%. Figure 7 shows its pin This data is in real-time. However, we need to store
configuration. it somewhere for further analysis. For this purpose,
we used Google Spreadsheet. Figures 8-11 show the
mobile application screens; main screen, login
screen, parameter range screen and control screen,
respectively.

Figure 7: DHT22

Courtesy: https://core-electronics.com.au/dht22-
temperature-and-relative-humidity-sensor-
module.html

V. Software

The softwares used were for the purpose of creating

the mobile application and for storing the data on a
database, using a cloud server. Android Studio was
used to create the mobile application. To make
things easier, an introductory step of block coding Figure 8: IoT Mobile application main screen
on MIT app Inventor can be taken. This way, if an
error occurs during the assembly of blocks, it is
Figure 9: IoT Mobile application Login Screen
Figure 11: Control screen

VI. Results

Proper monitoring of this whole system is the most

essential part of the whole framework. The
precision of sensors play a vital role in proper
monitoring and controlling. Other factors such as
the parameters namely, light, temperature, humidity
and water level and pH are to be kept under
constant supervision as a slight change in any of
these parameters may prove to be fatal for the fishes
and plants. After our research work, we have come
up with the ideal data for the whole system, as
shown in figure 16.
Figure 10: Parameter range screen
The live feeds of data are updated on Google by
writing a code on script editor of Google spread
sheets, using Firebase as a cloud platform. The data
is displayed in form of various graphs as shown in
figures 12-15. Furthermore, we created an IoT
mobile application which will display the run time
data and allows the user to control the whole system
remotely. This data is easily accessible to the user
everywhere in the world.
 PH 6-7.5

Water Temperature 16-30 °C

DO 5-8 mg/litre

Ammonia 0 mg/litre

Nitrite 0 mg/litre
Figure 12: Plot of humidity in Google Spreadsheet Nitrate 5-150 mg/litre

KH 60-144 mg/litre

Figure 16: Parameters of Ideal Aquaponic system

VII. Conclusion and Future Work

Our system combines both hardware and software

effectively. IoT ensures that the data is available
Figure 13: Plot of temperature in plant bed in
readily at any time instant. Implementing IoT
Google Spreadsheet
technology in aquaponics system has made it easier
and more precise. It can be done on both small and
large scales. Our system is both autonomous and
semi-autonomous. Due to IoT, the constant
monitoring and control of the system is possible.
The average speed of manually controlling our
system, through the mobile app, is 2 seconds
making it highly precise and faster.

This system can be made better in the near future by

adding nitrate sensors which will measure the levels
Figure 14: Plot of pH in Google Spreadsheet
of nitrates and the effect that it will have on the
growth of our yield. Furthermore, wireless sensors
can be added, each sensor containing its own
microcontroller unit. This will eliminate the need of
any central processing device and every sensor will
be in contact with every other device. A more
convenient approach in the future would be the
addition of a memory stick, so that in case of power
outage, the data being sent to the cloud, via the
internet, could be stored, preventing any data loss.
Figure 15: Plot of fish tank temperature in Google
Spreadsheet
 VIII. References

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