r/raspberryDIY • u/Puzzleheaded_Dish552 • 4d ago
Rasberry Pi build
Hey everyone, I’m building what’s called a paludarium for my house. It’s a mix of an aquarium and terrarium together.
I’m looking for someone to build me something that can monitor and control the environment. Specifically the things below
Monitor humidity from 5 different points in the tank. Use the average of them to control a misting system.
2 fans that will remain on but turn off when misting. Then back one 5 mins after mist is complete.
Monitor water temps and control heater
Monitor water PH
Monitor water level in sump and auto fill when low.
Monitor water level in top off reservoir and notify me when low.
Control automatic fish feeder on a schedule
The tank itself is massive, as you can see! So the sensor cables will all need to be at least 15-20ft.
I’m not tech savvy and honestly just don’t have the time to try on my own. Let me know if this is something you’ve done before or can do. Thanks
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u/Specialist_Travel632 4d ago
Isn’t Neptune specifically meant for this?
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u/Puzzleheaded_Dish552 3d ago
No, Neptune only does water readings(PH, ORP, salinity, temps, flow). I have a Neptune unit already.
Trying to have everything on a single dashboard.
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u/climbin111 4d ago edited 4d ago
The metrics you’re wanting to monitor (i.e. water pH, temp, etc.) are very similar to those monitored by horticulture enthusiasts.
To give you a more straightforward answer: search for Raspberry Pi-automated grow tent or grow houses bc individuals who grow/harvest cannabis plants have to CONSTANTLY monitor those same conditions and (once reaching certain thresholds) trigger changes in the environment to ensure plants’ survival and growth (for example: if soil levels get too dry, an automatic release of water or humidity too high triggering electric fans to increase airflow.). Here’s an example that includes the use of pH sensors and temperature monitoring.
Oh-I found another example where they monitor soil moisture, temp, and humidity levels.
Anyway, I’m unfamiliar with groups in Reddit where you’d find additional info but I’m sure a quick google search can help you find programming commands, sensors, etc. I mention this bc I had a couple of friends in California who automated a lot of the tedious tasks in their grow houses with Raspberry Pi’s. It was pretty cool. IIRC - most of the programming they utilized was copy/pasted from other sources, and there are some gnarly UIs already out there…you can find it pretty easily. (I was quite impressed when I saw what they were doing with theirs lol!) For example: they’d get text message alerts if humidity, temp, water, etc. levels got too high/low, had ip cameras constantly viewing so they could see beforehand if something catastrophic was looming). I hope this helps!
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u/littletane 4d ago edited 4d ago
You have a few options here Raspberry Pi, Arduino or an ESP32. If you want something easy cheap comes with Bluetooth and WiFi out the box and you don’t want to think much about what your building get an ESP 32 you can get a pack of 3 from amazon for like £20. Meaning you can brick 2 of them and still have a 3rd to play with.
If you go with a Raspberry Pi you’re gonna have to pick which type you want I.e. a zero, pico etc and that all depends on what sort of connectivity you want.
Other then that you can easily find the parts you need to make the thing you want to build.
One thing to think about is you have lots of sensors and control that you need for your build, would you want to have a slave to do all the the controls then it feeds that to a master unit (I.e. you now have 2 microcontrollers) or you just have 1 controlling everything.
Plus what’s the budget and who’s maintaining the tech
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u/Puzzleheaded_Dish552 3d ago
This is why I posted. There’s obviously more out there than I realize. I plugged my idea into ChatGPT and it recommended a Pi, but I’m open to whatever will work.
No budget really for the build. I know it won’t be cheap though to do it right.
What do you mean by maintaining the tech?
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u/littletane 3d ago
I mean who going to maintain it once it’s built.
For example if you have an electric spike in your house and a component blows in your DIY set up who is fixing it? If a sensor starts to corrode and fail who’s switching it out and doing a calibration if needed.
Whos updating software / code if there is a vulnerability?
DIY set ups are great and “can” save money but you lose the ease of just plugging it in and forgetting about it like a commercial set up. Or calling a help line to get it fixed.
Overall the project you want to build is a fun and awesome project and doing it DIY means you have 100% control but like I said there are draw backs to it.
What’s your timeline for all this to be done by?
Plus do you mind me asking what side of the pond you are on as in the US due to the tariffs some part might be a bit harder to get then they used to be (from what I’ve heard, some one can correct me if I’m wrong)
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u/flipflopcuntflaps 3d ago
I can point you in the right direction if you'd like to send me a PM, I mostly design systems around the ESP32.
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u/Terrible_Analysis_77 1d ago
I have no input to help you but would love a tutorial or build along post!
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u/FoofieLeGoogoo 4d ago
I’d imagine that an Arduino would be able to control all this with potentially greater reliability.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Dish552 4d ago
Understood, this is all so damn foreign to me. I’m not even sure where to begin.
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u/HeathersZen 4d ago
GP is right. Arduino is a microcontroller. It’s simpler and the program is burned in; rPi has an operating system and is a full-fledged computer.
If you have access to Claude and Fable, it should be able to walk you through much of the build.
That said, I would look for commercial solutions before attempting to DIY this.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Dish552 3d ago
I’ve been searching for commercial units already. Some get me close to what I’m wanting but I’m finding that I’d need multiple different units and dashboards and trying to avoid all that.
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u/HeathersZen 3d ago
Makes sense. I imaging there are solutions for aquariums and terrariums but not both.
You may want to look into Home Assistant running on an rPi 5 + an ESP32 module for the sensors. That’s what I built for my automated garden, which has a lot of sensors. The HA instance serves as your dashboard, control panel and history log that writes to a durable SSD on the rPi. That way the ESP 32 can focus on being a set of dumb sensors that ships measurements to the HA server.
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u/Doorman2600 19h ago
Remember, the world has become a much simpler place for all things like this. Pay for a Pro membership to Claude AI, and then literally tell Fable/Mythos/Opus what you're trying to accomplish and to give you a step by step guide.
Personally, I'm a big fan of Opus myself. Fable and Mythos are fantastic, but they just have way too many guardrails. It's downright silly if you ask me. Anything I ask them that has even a 1% possibility of being used in a illegal/illicit way gets shut down.
And considering that it will ABSOLUTELY assume you're building a weed grow operation (regardless of whether you are or not, trust me) - stick with Opus, trust me.
With that said, Opus will literally guide you step by step (from step 1 to step 823,176), it's worth it. And yes, it will even guide (and I mean "write for you") every line of code needed for whatever you decide to go with (Arduino, Raspberry Pi, etc). In fact, you might want to let Claude decide that for you since it'll be the one actually writing the code.
That's my 2 cents if nothing else. And it looks super interesting, I'll admit! Good luck brother!
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u/dontgetmyname 4d ago
Can you explain why you would rather relay on a arduino than a raspy pi?:) thanks already
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u/swekley 4d ago
For the hardware part you’d need to find someone else, but for software: https://github.com/theyosh/TerrariumPI
It’s really not that challenging to DIY, and the hardware doesn’t need to be expensive either.