Development of Automatic Fish Feeding Machine for Integrated Floating Cage Aquageoponic System

Abstract

Aims: The objective of this work was to develop and evaluate the performance of an automatic fish feeder- to enhance aquacultural practices and farmponds Place and Duration of Study: The research study was conducted at Madakasira, (Latitude: 13°56ʹ55.96″ N and Longitude: 77°18ʹ45.38″ E) which is located in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh, India. The mean annual temperature and annual rainfall of the study area are 27.6°C and 532 mm, respectively. Most of the rainfall (~80%) is received during South-West monsoon. The experiment study was conducted from March‒June, 2018. Methodology: Automatic fish feeder includes both electrical and mechanical mechanism. The materials includes for the development of the feeder was cone shape hopper, top covering lid, base, 12V DC motor, 12V 7Ah Rechargeable Lead Acid Battery, Arduino Uno, Bluetooth HC-05 module, 5v Relay, DC-DC step-down converter. The developed feeder was operated with the help of mobile app by using Bluetooth HC-05 module. The spreading distance and amount of feed spread, opening angles of the feeder were evaluated during the research period. Results:  Our results showed that the amount of feed spread was maximum (140 g m-1) with 1.0 m height and was minimum (101 g m-1) at 0.2 m height. This results clearly shows that the fish feeder has to be kept at maximum height so that it covers maximum spreading distance with minimum loss of fish feed by drift. With increase in height of the machine from ground surface, the spreading distance of the fish feed from the feeding machine was also increased. Conclusion: Farmers were satisfied with this new technology which helps to avoid manual feeding and provides the clean environment.