Aquarium Controller - Custom PCB - 2x Arduino Mega - MySensors - Domoticz


3 min read

I always enjoy the view of my aquarium ( still after more then 10 Years) But 1 thing about this hobby I never liked… And that is monitoring the water and the actual weekly water changes.

Last year I noticed the project MySensors over @ https://mysensors.org because I was playing around with my home automation system ( https://domoticz.com)

And suddenly the idea came to create an Aquarium Controller based on the MySensors Project and Controlled by Domoticz. I started ordering all sorts of components from E-bay to play around with and build a little setup that is able to control my LED Strips / the High Power(10W) Leds / and monitor the temperature of the water and the surroundings.(ph and TurbiditySensor are on its way)

On the picture ( it’s probably hard to see because of the cable mess) are 3 small arduino’s

  • Monitoring Temp
  • controlling Relais ( for 12V PWM LED Drivers)
  • Controlling Fans ( pwm)
This was done to see if all would run stable and kept running for months. So far I've had no issues and all boards are running nicely. So I'm ready for the next phase of the project.

That is to build a custom PCB where I can fit on 2 Arduino Mega’s to control and monitor the majority of the aquarium ( Changing water will be a sepperate PCB - And I still need to figure out the waterpipes I need to create for that.) Next I downloaded Fritzing and started playing around with the components until i had a nice PCB that I could use ( This process took me about a month.)

What’s all on the board?

  • 2x RGB control
  • 4x PWM Fan Control and FanSpeed Monitoring
  • Turbidity sensor input
  • PH-Probe Sensor input
  • OneWire ( Temp.)
  • 8x Relais Controls
  • ATX PSU Control
  • Connection for backup power 5v( small powerbank ) - just in case the power goes out one of the arduino's would still keep running.
  • 3x Volt meters ( 12v / 5v / 5vStandby)
I'm now in the process of putting the finishing touches on the PCB( labeling all components correct with their values)

Issues to resolve before the board can be created:

  1. I should somehow be able to control the  LED drivers over PWM but I'm still working on that part since the driver requires a 12V PWM signal and the arduino send a 5V PWM signal it won't work. gotta find something for that ..
More to come Soon...