SIMALI, Nile Tilapia Pond Water Monitoring System

Tim UB Beserta Dosen PembimbingNeed of fish for the community to fulfill balanced nutrition requirement is very important. Because of this development of freshwater fishery industry needs to be accelerated. Water quality is one of the important factors in aquaculture industry because the water ecosystem life depends on the water quality. Fulfilling water quality standard is not easy because an observation of various water parameter from physic, chemistry, or biology is required. To solve this problem three students of Brawijaya University (UB) created a water monitoring system for Nile tilapia fish pond named SIMALI. All of them came from different faculties, Muhammad Zainur Rodhi (Computer Engineering/2013, FILKOM), Ahmad Fathan Halim (Electrical Engineering/2015, FT) and Diyah Ayu Lestari (Aquaculture/2014, FPIK). The team that called themselves UB Team got the idea for their creation from a lecturer of Brawijaya University’s Faculty of Computer Sciences that also served as their counselor, Tibyani, S.T., M.T.

Zainur Rodhi explained that SIMALI is a combination between technology that combines hardware and software.

Hardware device consists of water condition detector, microcontroller, and some actuators. The software used in SIMALI was created in the form of the web application that can be accessed from Desktop Personal Computer or Mobile Smartphone. SIMALI works by inserting water condition detector hardware which has three different sensors into the fish pond.

The device will act as the detector of water temperature, pH levels, and water turbidity detector. Result of input data will be stored and analyzed in the microcontroller and sent to the database so it can be accessed through the web monitoring interface. Web monitoring interface makes it possible for a user to check the information and status through three different water parameter: temperature, pH, and turbidity.

SIMALI also have some other supporting features. The first one is controlling feature that can work automatically to keep pond water in ideal condition for fish’s growth. The second is automatic feeder feature that can automatically feed the fish according to certain amount and schedule.

“So based on previous study (Tyas, 2016) we know that Nile tilapia is a fish that lives in freshwater environment. Nile tilapia fish have a normal growth ability in 14-38 degree Celsius. At 6 degree Celsius or 42 degree Celsius the fish will die,” Zainur Rodhi explained.

Zainur Rodhi said that creation of SIMALI is intended for small and middle business owners in the aquaculture sector. Even if at the beginning the targeted object is nile tilapia fish, in the implementation it can be configured to adapt with water condition requirement for cultivation of other fish. In the implementation process, SIMALI will be installed on one of the nile tilapia fish breeding and cultivating facility in Malang, in the santren area No. 22 RT 03 RW 01 Mandalan Wangi village of Wagir district in Malang Regency.

“We hope that this monitoring system can help nile tilapia fish cultivation industry to develop further, so that they can increase the quality of community’s economy and welfare,” Zainur Rodhi explained.

SIMALI won the gold medal (first place) in the Electro Activities Programme (E-TIME) 2017 national competition on the Internet of Things category (29/3/2017-1/4/2017).

This year E-TIME’s theme is “Incredible Things with Technology”, one of the work program of Ministry of Education and Sciences of The Electrical Student Jakarta State Polytechnic. E-TIME is a national scale competition with the participant that comes from all of Indonesian University and Polytechnic. The event was aimed to increase student’s creativity and develop new innovation in the technological sector. UB team becomes the first winner of E-TIME 2017 by winning over 19 other teams in the final round, some of them came from ITS Surabaya, PENS, STMIK STIKOM Bali, Udayana University, and Jakarta State Polytechnic. [zr/DNA/UB PR]