About The Project

Beginnings

The idea started back in 2013, For many years I’ve wanted to own my own Aquarium. I started out with freshwater and later on moved into the world of saltwater. In my personal quest for campaign clarity water in both fresh & salt I found the overflow systems with sumps to be the most superior option. No doubt as you might already know this led to filters of various types and other equipment which I built myself to help refine my water. I was lost in all the parameters of fish keeping with no accurate log or means to manage when last I did a water change, what was my last PH value ?, how old was my filter … for that matter all my filters ( I have many ) etc .. So …

At this time I was already a seasoned user of the Raspberry Pi, and based on my struggles with all the maintenance aspects of saltwater aquariums I not only wanted to record the basics but I also set out with the ambitious idea of being able to control all the power related devices around and in the tank. For example circulation pumps, 4 stage lighting, auto cooling (fan or chiller), temperature readings & more.

After many late nights I finally ended up with the base project working, crude but none the less it worked. Since then I’ve been refining the system to provide a more intuitive web interface. And in no time after a few discussions online it led to me making the product available for people to try. The original version was actually featured in MagPi Issue#21 many moons ago.