Domotica and (Koi) pond (vijver).

Post by **aeh** » Sat May 16, 2009 11:06 pm

Does anyone have some experience with Domotica in combination with a (Koi) pond.
Keeping Kois is an expensive and fragile hobby.
Domotica can help with security, measuring and preventing the loss of Koi.
Loosing Koi is terrible and cost a lot of money. A nice Koi cost 175 - 500 and can go up till 30.000.

Im thinking about:
Measuring water temperature
Water quality.
Water hight.
Controlling (led) lighting.
Controlling the UV lights
Measuring and controlling (air) pumps.
..

I have to build a new pond, so its better to do it's right this time and make use of Domotica, maybe Oregon stuff and Homeseer.

Has anyone good ideas?

Best regards.

Post by **Bwired** » Sun May 17, 2009 1:31 am

Controlling pumps and water Temp is easy I guess. Oregon has a nice floating tempsensor with small LCD screen as well. Can be received with RFXCOM. I have seen a guy on the internet who displayed his aquarium with cam's etc he had sensors for water quality as well.
Cant find it anymore, I keep trying......

Post by **r_255** » Sun May 17, 2009 6:47 am

Domotica, i wonder..... are you going to live in that pond

?

There is many specialised stuff on aqauriums even on koi,
http://koiguard.nl/

Must be connectable somehow...

Post by **Barlow** » Sun May 17, 2009 10:05 am

The DrDAQ interface board has built in sensors for light, sound (both sound level and sound waveforms) and temperature. It can also measure voltage and resistance. In addition it has a socket for standard pH electrodes and connectors for optional external sensors (temperature, humidity, pressure and more). Costs around EURO 100.
http://www.drdaq.com

I don't know if there is an interface available to HS2 but the supplier provides a range of software drivers and examples that should enable you to build one. I that's not for you, then you could always buy an of the shelf software package that offers some X10 control capabilities, such as Doctor Aquarium.
http://www.draquarium.com

Post by **aeh** » Sun May 17, 2009 10:21 am

Well, that's what i need. Low cost, measures the right stuff and combined with X10.
Thanks.

Post by **MindBender** » Sun May 17, 2009 12:46 pm

What is 'low cost', considered your talking about 175 - 500 Euro fish? Not even mentioning the crazy 30.000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania). And if the fish are really that precious, I don't think it's very wise to save on the equipment protecting them.

We have a very modest 20L fish tank at home. Not because I wanted one, but because my girlfriend thought it would be nice, so we bought it and nice it is. It has 15 Euro worth of fish in it and we are considering to add shrimps as well. As a result I am cleaning the tank, testing water quality on 15 parameters and cycling fresh water every week. Having fish is a lot of work. So I am looking for a solution here too, but not because I'm afraid to loose 15 Euro worth of fish: I'm doing this because I feel responsible for their health and their well-being, silly as it may sound.

Measuring electric signals/levels and publishing them as data is no problem to me. Neither is converting most physical parameter such as temperature and light conditions to such electric signals. But I'm getting a bit lost in the chemistry part: Besides pH, I don't know of any electronic sensors for parameters such as gH, kH, NO2, NO3 etc. Do you know of any sensors for these parameters, or of a small robotic laboratory able to execute these tests? For the rest I might be able to help out.