When I first got into aquariums and fish-keeping, I found that monitoring the conditions of your tank was the main source of stress for most aquarists. This project uses an Arduino and basic electrical components to create an Automatic Aquarium Management System (AAMS) that monitors your aquarium for you, tracking things like temperature, feeding times, and water change dates.
The case required cutouts for the LED, button, OLED, and Arduino IO ports, as well as wires for the servo and temperature sensor.
Along with the case, I came up with a rudimentary design for the fish food dispensing mechanism. While there was no drawing, it was simple enough that I could construct it without one. It consists of a servo attached to a pill bottle with a hole in it. As the servo rotates, the pellets are dispensed through the hole in the bottle.
ConstructionI first laser cut the case out of a.18” thick acrylic sheet using VCarve and the CAD file for the case. Afterward, I used super glue to attach the pieces to each other.
For the food dispensing mechanism, I glued the pill bottle to the servo and attached the entire thing to a point above the water in my tank. The rest of construction consisted of wiring the breadboard and taping the OLED to the cutout in the case. I also extended the button to sit above the case by using a wooden dowel with a diameter of.25 ” in the hole for the button (to push the button).
Remember to change the parameters to be specific to your sensors, servos, and pin layout. Libraries needed:
RTClib
OneWire
DallasTemperature
ServoAdafruit
BusIO
Adafruit GFX Library
Adafruit SSD1306
ConclusionThis project is relatively simple, especially given that there are more variables at work in a tank than temperature, food, and water change. However, it is reliable and very useful for a system made from scratch. I intend to expand the utility by including a pH sensor and possibly a water turbidity or hardness sensor.
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