The importance of maintaining adequate water quality for aquaculture is well known. To achieve this, important advances have been made in the design and management of culture systems; mainly in those of water recirculation, seeking to maintain the values of certain physical and chemical parameters within acceptable ranges for the proper development of the organisms. It is also important to have a plan for monitoring those parameters, which conventionally involves various measuring equipment's and trained personnel.
Automation is particularly one of the main causes of increased quality and productivity in the world. As part as a research project (SIP 20195021) to study the Pacific pygmy octopus Paroctopus digueti and the sea urchin Tripneustes depressus for future human consumption, an automated system was made to monitor efficiently the water quality in an experimental tank. The main intention was to reduce the staff time and the human interaction with the studied specimens without renounce to the record of the variables (temperature, dissolved oxygen, ammonium concentration, pH, oxidation reduction potential, conductivity).
The principal component of the system is a Raspberry Pi where manage the measurements of the sensors. This is an advantage because is an open system reconfigurable for future improvements as cloud data services, a locally interface with a screen, remote interfaces in mobile devices or changes in research needs like adding more sensors. The measurements are saved in a SD card in a simple format compatible with common software to process and analyze the data (as excel, matlab, diadem, statistica and more). The system is designed to work connected to the electric grid or can be autonomous working with a battery to work in distant places for at least a week. Additionally, to this, the recording rate provides up to 28,800 samples per day (20 samples per minute). All the probes can be fully submerged in both, salt or fresh water for long periods of time which gives versatility.