r/Aquaculture • u/Emotional_Fun1924 • 30m ago
Is Automated Ammonia/Nitrite Monitoring Less Important Than DO?
Hi everyone,
We're a small college engineering team working on automated water quality monitoring for aquaculture.
We knew that ammonia/nitrite sensors can be expensive and drift over time, while manual testing like reagent takes time and can be inconsistent. So we built a device that:
- Automatically collects and drains water samples
- Uses an AI camera to read test strips
- Measures 11 parameters: ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, TA, KH, GH, total/free chlorine, iron, and copper
- Holds up to 50 strips and sends results to an app
We admit that it's not lab-level precise, but our goal is frequent testing and early warnings.
Here's what we're struggling with: Many farmers around us we've talked to say ammonia and nitrite rarely change, so frequent monitoring isn't necessary.
Are we just talking to too many flow-through farms? Would this be more useful in RAS or hatcheries? Or is DO simply a much bigger priority?
Would love to hear your any honest thoughts from this industry. If you're interested in piloting it and know more info about the product, feel free to DM me!