An IoT-based system for monitoring and controlling water quality in small-

scale aquaculture.

1
Abbas Nyoni*, 2Dr. Lusajo Minga, 3Dr.Sadiki Lameck Kusyama.
1
Department of Information System, Mbeya University of Science and Technology, Mbeya university of
science and technology, P.O. Box 131, [email protected], Tanzania.
2
Collage of Information and Communication Technology, Mbeya University of science and technology,
P.O. Box 131, Tanzania, [email protected].
3
Collage of Information and Communication Technology, Mbeya University of science and technology,
P.O. Box 131, Tanzania,[email protected].

Abstract
Water quality is an important factor for any successful aquaculture project. For high
productivity from aquaculture, critical water quality parameters such as Temperature, PH,
Dissolved Oxygen, Salinity and Turbidity must be kept in the optimum range. The objective of
this paper is to design and implement a system prototype based on the Internet of things for
monitoring and control of water temperature in an aquaculture environment. Temperature is the
second most critical water quality parameter after dissolved oxygen. The system is composed of
temperature sensors, a NodeMCU Esp8266 Microcontroller, a 2-channel relay switch, LCD, a
cooling fan, a water heater, and a mobile Application. The collected data from fish ponds is sent
to the microcontroller, a NodeMCU Esp8266 for processing and transmission to the cloud
server. Blynk cloud IoT platform has been used for data visualization. The system user can
access data through Blynk Mobile App installed on a Smartphone. When the system detects
water temperature above or below the predefined threshold value, the system automatically
activates a relay switch to switch ON the cooling fan or water heater. The system was tested and
the experimental results showed that the system can be used in a real-world environment.

Keywords: Aquaculture, Water Quality, IoT, Temperature Sensor, NodeMCU ESP8266, Blynk.
1. Introduction.
The demand for fish has prompted people to engage in aquaculture to supplement the insufficient
supply of fish from natural sources such as oceans, lakes, and rivers (Mzula et al., 2020).
Aquaculture has aided in the improvement of household food security and income (Mzula et al.,
2020).

Among the factors that mostly affect the productivity of aquaculture is water quality
(Summerfelt, 2015). Water quality is determined by the level of several parameters such as
temperature, PH, dissolved oxygen, salinity, conductivity, and electrical conductivity (Sengupta
et al., 2019). Chronic exposure to a concentration of one or more water-quality parameters that is
lower or higher than the optimal concentration has a significant impact on the growth and
survival of fish in aquaculture ponds, so water quality parameters must be monitored and
maintained at their optimal level for high productivity (Ebeling, 2011).

Temperature is an important water quality parameter that must be closely monitored. Fish are
cold-blooded (poikilothermic), meaning their body temperature is determined by the temperature
of their surroundings (water Temperature). The temperature of the water affects fish metabolism,
growth, swimming speed, feeding, reproduction, respiration, and survival. Growth rates increase
as the water temperature rises within the tolerable temperature range until the optimum
temperature is reached (Ebeling, 2011). Tropical fish prefer temperatures ranging from 25°C to
32°C. Temperatures outside of this range can cause poor fish growth or, at a critical point, death.

Furthermore, the temperature affects the level of dissolved oxygen in a fish pond. Warm water
contains less dissolved oxygen than cold water, so the higher the temperature, the less dissolved
oxygen (Simbeye & Yang, 2014). As a result, as the temperature rises, fish consume more
oxygen. Temperature is an important water quality parameter in aquaculture because it affects
not only the metabolism and growth of fish but also the concentration of dissolved oxygen in the
water, which is the most important requirement for the fish to live.

The traditional water quality management approaches have several limitations such as human
errors during sample correction, human errors during data recording and analysis, and the lack of
real-time data on water quality variation (Adu-Manu et al., 2017). Lack of proper approach for
water quality monitoring and control can result in poor growth of fish, fish disease, and death of
fish and hence poor productivity from aquaculture (Banrie, 2015).

The objective of this study is to design and implement a system prototype based on the Internet
of things (IoT) for water temperature monitoring in small-scale aquaculture. The system shall
help fish farmers to improve their approach to water quality management for optimizing fish
productivity.

Hussein (2019) defined the Internet of Things (IoT) as an interconnected system of physical
items with unique addresses and various degrees of processing, sensing, and actuation
capabilities that use the internet to interoperate and communicate. Oracle reported that the
Internet of Things (IoT) describes the network of physical objects—“things”—that are embedded
with sensors, software, and other technologies to connect and exchange data with other devices
and systems over the internet. The objective of the Internet of Things is to interconnect Physical
objects. The number of devices with internet capability is increasing and IoT plays a significant
role in bringing those devices to our fingertips (Waseem, 2015).
In a similar study, Faustine et al.(2014) developed a water quality monitoring system prototype
based on a wireless sensor network in Lake Victoria Basin (LVB). The development of this
system was preceded by the assessment of the availability of a cellular network in the study area.
In this study, an Arduino board was used as a microcontroller, water quality sensors, and
wireless communication module. The chosen parameters were water temperature, dissolved
oxygen, and electrical conductivity. The sensors installed in water collected data on those
parameters and send them to the central station in real-time. The data were disseminated to the
stakeholders through a web portal and mobile phones. The system was tested both in Lab and
field and experimental results showed that the system can be adopted and used in real-world
environments.

2. The proposed system.

The proposed system is composed of a Microcontroller(NodeMCU Esp8266), waterproof

temperature sensors(DS18B20), LCD, relay switch, water heater, cooling fan, and Mobile
Application. The temperature sensor collects temperature data and sends them to the
microcontroller (NodeMCU Esp8266). The microcontroller processes the collected data and sent
them to the IoT cloud platform through WIFI. The users shall visualize the data using Mobile
App installed on the user’s smartphone. The system has been configured to control water
temperature automatically. When the temperature is below or above the predefined threshold
values, a microcontroller sends the signal to the relay switch to allow electrical current to
actuators (Water heater or cooling fan).

3. Methods and materials.

3.1 System Development Approach

In this study, the prototyping methodology was adopted during system development. Prototyping
is an approach based on an iterative approach for system development (Chandra, 2015). In this
methodology, a working prototype of the proposed system is developed before the development
of the complete system. This methodology is best when the system requirements are not well
known. In this study, the early version of the system prototype was developed and customer
evaluation was collected for improvement of the prototype. The following steps were followed
during prototype development.

Requirement Analysis Quick Design Building Prototype

Enginner Product Refine Prototype Customer Evaluation

Figure 1: Prototyping Model

3.2 System Design

Figure 1, is a block diagram of the proposed system. The diagram shows how the system
components are interfaced with each other. The design of the system was based on the
fundamental architecture of the internet of things systems. The fundamental IoT architecture has
three layers Perception layer, the network layer, and the application layer. The perception layer
is for data collection from the environment, the network layer is for communication of the
collected data, and the application layer provides an interface to the user of the system.
 Figure 2: Block diagram of the system.

3.3 Hardware components of the system

3.3.1 Temperature Sensor.

DS18B20 sensor has been used in this study to detect temperature from fish ponds. Water
Temperature indicates how water is hot or cold. DS18B20 can detect the temperature ranging
from -55c to +125c, with an accuracy of -2/+2co. In this work, a waterproof DS18B20
temperature sensor has been used since the sensors shall be immersed in water.

3.3.2 NodeMCU Esp8266

NodeMCU is an open-source microcontroller board based on Esp8266 with WIFI capability used
as a microcontroller and can connect objects in the internet of things network (IoT) to exchange
data using WI-FI protocol (Lufyagila et al., 2021). In this study, NodeMCU Esp8266 was chosen
as a microcontroller board since it has WIFI capability and it is less expensive compared to other
boards such as Arduino and raspberry pi. NodeMCU Esp8266 is Arduino compatible meaning
that all code running in Arduino can run in NodeMCU Esp8266.

3.3.3 A two Channel Relay switch

A relay switch is an electromagnetic switch that operates under a voltage of 3.3V – 5V and
allows a user to control devices with high voltage by a microcontroller with low voltage. 2
channels Relay switch has four input pins IN1, IN2, VCC, and GND, and the three output pins
Common (COM), Normally Open (NO) and normally closed. A 2-channel relay switch was
connected to the microcontroller to control the cooling fan and water heater.

3.3.4 Cooling Fan.

The cooling fans are connected to the 2 relay switch. When the temperature is higher than the
threshold value predefined in a system, a system triggers a relay switch which allows electrical
current to the cooling fans. Apart from automatic control of water temperature, a fish farmer can
switch ON/OFF the cooling fans whenever he/she wants.

3.3.5 Water Heater.

Immersion Electric Heater was installed and immersed into water to heat pond water. When the
temperature is lower than a threshold value predefined in a system, the system triggers a relay
switch which allows electrical current to pass to the heater. A water heater can also be controlled
by a fish farmer from a remote using a mobile App.

3.4 Software components of the system.

3.4.1 Blynk Mobile App

Blynk is an IoT platform that allows building interfaces for visualizing sensor data from the
monitoring systems and controlling hardware from IoS and android devices(Bunker, 2015).
Blynk mobile App was used to build a dashboard where buttons, graphs, sliders, and other
widgets were arranged, Using those widgets and buttons, we can visualize sensor data and
control the connected hardware such as the cooling fan and water heater.

3.5 Schematic Diagram of the system

Figure: 3 illustrates the schematic diagram of the developed system. The temperature sensor,
DS18B20 is interfaced with the microcontroller (NodeMCU Esp8266) at pin 4. The
microcontroller is connected to a 12V power supply. A 2-channel relay switch is connected to a
microcontroller at pins 2 and 3. The water heater and cooling fan are connected to the 2 relay
switch in channel 1 and channel 2 respectively.

Figure 3: Schematic Diagram of System.

4. Results and Discussion.

3.1 Experimental results

The proposed system shown in figure 5, was successfully developed following the proposed
design and architecture. The prototype was tested in different water samples in Laboratory, and
the values obtained from the system were compared to the values from the handheld
thermometer and the values were almost the same. When the temperature of the water is higher
than the threshold, a cooling fan is switched ON to cool the water, and when the sensor is
transferred to cold water with a temperature below a threshold value, a water heater is switched
ON to increase the temperature of the water. Table 1, shows the results obtained during testing of
the developed system in different water samples.

Figure 4: Developed system prototype

Table1: Experimental results.

Water sample IoT System Thermometer

Sample 1 41.1c0 41.3c0 The cooling system was automatically

switched ON

Sample 2 24.2c0 24.1c0 Within Optimum range

Sample 3 12.4c0 12.2c0 The heating system was automatically switched ON

 Figure 5: Flowchart of the system

3.1 Data visualization

The temperature readings from sensors are displayed on the user’s Smartphone through the
Blynk Mobile app. Figure 6, shows how the temperature readings from fish ponds are displayed
on the user's smartphone. The mobile App has switch widgets for controlling the water heater
and cooling fan.

Figure 6: Temperature visualization on Blynk Mobile App.

5. Conclusion.

In this paper, an IoT system prototype for water temperature monitoring and control has been
designed and implemented for optimizing productivity in small-scale aquaculture. The system
was successfully designed, developed, and tested and the results showed that the prototype works
as expected, and hence can be implemented in real-world environments. Water quality
monitoring is a vast topic that covers many parameters, however, in this study, only the
temperature was selected to be a study parameter. For future research, we recommend other
parameters to be considered since they are important in aquaculture productivity.

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