PBA: Pleco Breeding Assistant

A small monitor that reports the external, fishroom and water change parameters to have suitable water parameters and induce breeding. These two features already represent 50% of the “reproductive success of Pleco”.

grafico

Everything has been realized with a UDOO Quad board. UDOO DUAL/QUAD is a single board computer that can run Android or Linux OS, and also features an Arduino-compatible microcontroller embedded onboard. It is a powerful prototyping board for software development and design. Easy to use, it allows to develop projects with minimum knowledge of hardware design. UDOO DUAL/QUAD merges different computing worlds together: each one has its proper strengths and weak points, but all of them are useful in todays life for educational purposes as well as Do-It-Yourself (DIY) and quick prototyping. UDOO DUAL/QUAD is an open hardware, low-cost platform equipped with an ARM i.MX6 NXP® processor, and an Arduino Due compatible section based on ATMEL SAM3X8E ARM processor, all this available on the same board!

The Arduino has been used with the following sensors:

  • BMP180 Temperature and pressure sensor
  • TDS Conductivity sensor
  • DS18B20 Immersion temperature sensor
  • Netatmo Environmental sensors
  • Engage Efergy Consumption sensors

The wiring diagram is as follows

diagram

To visualize the data instead it has been realized a python script to collect data from various sensors and display them through a dedicated web page

screenshot

The monitor shows

  • The current consumption necessary to heat the water in the exchange tank
  • Temperature, humidity and external pressure
  • Temperature, humidity and pressure in the fish room
  • Temperature and conductivity in the exchange tank
  • An icon showing if it is raining
  • An icon that lights up in “green” in case there are conditions to stimulate reproduction (low fishroom pressure, rain, low conductivity of the exchange water, low exchange water temperature)

GitHub

View Github