Chapter 4

DEVELOPMENT, TESTING AND IMPLEMENTATION

Description of Prototype

The prototype is a two layer rack type custom-made of steel frames. As shown in Figure

4.1, the fish tank is made of glass with tilapia fish inside placed at the bottom while at the top is

the grow bed for the plants and a custom-made steel holder for the light and ultrasonic sensor.

One ultrasonic sensor is place above the plants to monitor the plant height. The plants in grow

bed is Lactuca sativa simply called as lettuce. The tilapia and lettuce were chosen to be used in

this study because it adapts well to most environments and best fish for aquaponics. Above the

right portion of fish tank another ultrasonic sensor is installed which measure the water level in

the fish tank. Inside the tank, a pH sensor is dip into the water which reads the water ph value in

the tank. In the left portion inside the tank, the first submersible pump is placed that is used to

pump the water out when the water inside the fish tank is already acidic. In the right portion

inside the tank, second submersible pump is placed for pumping the water up to the grow bed

then a downspout is place to the other side of the grow bed so that the water recirculate back to

the fish tank. Beside the prototype frame, a water reservoir was placed ready to refill water inside

the fish thank using third pump.

The white box contained all the components and controller for the prototype such as the

Arduino Uno microcontroller, relays, Wi-Fi module ph sensor board, the power adapter provides

power to the system. The 20x4 LCD displayed all the monitoring and reading acquired by all the

sensor. The Wi-Fi module sends the data to the third party web ThingSpeak.com. The Prototype

project cost us around eight to nine thousand pesos.

 Figure 4.1 prototype
Gantt Chart

The activities incurred in building the project, as

well as the planning and completion of the prototype

is presented in Figure 4.2. During weeks one and two,

the team investigated the project's viability. The third

week is dedicated to content development. In the fourth

week of the month, the plan was presented. It took five weeks to design and order the

components. A week was spent building the prototype. Three weeks were spent coding the

software and checking the Arduino microcontroller and sensors and making the webpage for this

project, and two weeks were spent continuing to test the components and documenting the

prototype.

Figure 4.2 Gantt chart

Development

The Arduino Uno microcontroller serves as the brain of the entire project. The ultrasonic

sensor VCC pin will be connected to 5V, GND to ground, Trig Pin to Digital 7, Echo Pin to

Digital Pin 6 for plant height distance, Trig Pin to Digital 11, Echo Pin to Digital Pin 10 for
water level distance. The Wi-Fi ESP-8266 Module. The VCC pin is connected to 3v3, GND

connect to ground, TX pin connect to TX pin, RX pin connect to RX pin. The LCD. The VCC is

connected to 5V. GND to ground, SDC pin connected to A4, SCL pin connected to A5. The pH

sensor in the Arduino controller. VCC pin to 5V, GND to ground, PF6 pin connected to A0.

Figure 4.3 shows the diagram on how the components are assembled and connected.

Figure 4.3 Schematic Diagram

A webpage is also created to display the data gathered by the sensor for viewing

purposes as well as generation of relevant reports. As shown in Figure 4.4, the homepage

contained the navigation menu such as About, Schematic, Features, Graph, Report and

Threshold.
 In the about menu contains the description of the Aquaponics, the Schematic menu

shows the schematic diagram and connections of the prototype, in the features menu it showed

how the prototype work and the importance and benefits of aquaponics. Real time data is shown

when you click the graph menu. In the reports menu you can print and see all the data saved

from ThingSpeak.com.

Figure 4.4 Web page

Programming/Coding

In this phase the researcher made and wrote set of instructions for the system to function

as expected. Writing the source code of the program and debugging it are the main activities

during this phase.

Testing

The researcher tested the developed prototype through temporary transparent jar for the

water level measurement to test its dependability. During the development of the project, there

are some difficulties that occur such as micro connection and unsynchronized programming with

the hardware. This problem contributed to the project flow and need to be determined in
troubleshooting. The inputs have several sub-parameters to display accurate data in LCD. In the

design prototype the water level was measured in centimeters. The height of the water inside the

tank is assume to be high if it reached 25 centimeters high and 20 centimeters in height is low,

the monitoring level of the water were displayed in the LCD. When the water level is in 20 cm

low the system turn on the pump and it turns off when reach 25 cm height.

During the testing of the pH sensor some difficulties were encountered in its

programming for the calibration process because the shipment for the pH solutions never arrive.

By the time, two elements were tested, pure water and pure lemon extracted juice to evaluate the

readings of the pH quality of the two substances.

Arduino pH Tester

Arduino pH meter was tested to calibrate the device or component through dipping it into

a distilled water and with lemon juice. The result showed that water has pH value of 7.2 while

lemon juice has 2.40 pH value. Therefore the pH tester reads the pH level of the substances

correctly as shown in Figure 4.6, lemon juice is acidic while water is in a neutral level.

Figure 4.5 testing the pH of distilled water with Arduino pH Meter

 Figure 4.6 testing the pH of Lemon Juice with Arduino pH Meter

Implementation Plan

The developed system is presented to the selected households for approval. Letters were

sent to the selected household seeking their permission. Upon approval the activity duration is

one day. System installation for the required hardware/software is done in two days and the

information distribution for the selected household was done for 3 days.

PERSONS
STRATEGY ACTIVITIES DURATION
INVOLVE
Approval from the Submit letter of Researchers 1 day
selective household letter to the selected Household Heads
heads household heads
System’s Installation Installation of the Researchers 2 days
required
software/hardware
Information Distribution of Researchers 3 days
Distribution manual information Household Heads
Hands-on Training
and lectures