Two 11th grade students successfully create a device to monitor the shrimp farming environment

Derived from a conundrum in shrimp farming

Started from the desire to help and assist local seafood farmers through the “Early warning for risks in shrimp farming environment using artificial intelligence” project, Nguyen Viet Hung and Nguyen Thanh Long, class 11A4, Hon Gai High School (Ha Long City, Quang Ninh), had created another new method to change, control impurities and pathogens harmful to shrimp in the water environment.

According to the research, shrimp farming in key local areas in Quang Ninh has under-qualified soil, especially full of limestone and tightly concentrated industrial factories.

Long-termed industrial activities have released CO₂ and SO₂, resulting in acid rain, which will quickly change the pH value, DO (dissolved oxygen), and temperature, affecting greatly to the shrimp farming’s water environment.

As stated by Mr. Bui Van Liem, President of Mong Cai City Fisheries Association (Quang Ninh), the water environment in shrimp farming is an extremely serious matter, due to their inability to self-produce, self-process, or change the living condition for shrimp.

At Mong Cai City - the “metropolis” of shrimp farming, most shrimp farming households all use available water, then later have raw treatment through antiseptic solutions and powders, but this is not a sustainable method, which hardly avoids shrimps that are infected, scrawny and do not meet the productivity standard.

“Currently there are many food safety methods to cultivate shrimp, applying science and technology right from the initial stage, however, none of them is capable of separating harmful substances in water or warning against toxin concentration to change and handle appropriate environment for shrimp farming”, said Mr. Liem.

Moreover, the northern region’s characteristics change seasonally, easily leading to the potential of sudden changes in the water environment. The environment for shrimp farming depends a lot on natural factors; meanwhile, the main cultivating form is semi-intensive farming, which lacks a device that simultaneously and continuously measures the changes in the water environment, therefore prooves it difficult to notify farmers about potential risks to the shrimps.

The pH value of water is one of the important quotas that affect the water environment for shrimp farming. The preferred pH value is from 6.9 to 7.2 and fluctuates less than 0.5 a day. The pH value above 9 increases the toxicity of NH3, the pH below 5 makes toxic gas H2S rise. When the pH value is above 9.0 and below 5.5, the growing shrimps (less than 9 weeks young) will die.

The ideal DO quantity for a pond possessing a high density of shrimps is 6.8 to 7.5 mg/l. DO is 40 to 50 centimeters above the pond. The temperature for cultivating pond is suitable in the range of 23oC to 30oC, small shrimps (1 gr) grow fast at the water temperature of minus 30oC, big shrimps (12 - 18 gr) grow fast at the water temperature of 27oC. Shrimps will die when the temperature is below 15oC or above 33oC in 24 hours or longer.

The device that helps early notify risks in shrimp farming

Through the process of directly visiting local shrimp farming households, it can be seen that the shrimp farming profession lacks stability, the efficiency received isn’t proportional to its potential and strength. Shrimp farmers mainly rely on intuition, experience, and are highly dependent on natural factors.

Several places have started to apply warning technology but only at the level of showing the current status of the farming environment without prior warning, therefore the troubleshooting is not on time and the efficiency is low.

This is the reason why Thanh and Hung have decided to research, accompanied by the teachers’ help to develop a project called  “Early warning of risks in shrimp farming environment using artificial intelligence”.

Thanh and Hung’s team had researched about the application of artificial intelligence and created an early warning device for the changes of pH, DO, and temperature in the shrimp farming ponds, thereby helping shrimp farmers promptly handle the fluctuation of parameters, ensuring the best environment for the shrimps’ process of growing and developing. This also helps farmers lower their dependence on natural factors, increase productivity and quality of merchandise, heading towards sustainable stability for the seafood farming industry.

Hung and Thanh have created a device that applies artificial intelligence and early notifies changes of pH, DO, and temperature in shrimp farming pond, allows farmers to deal with the parameters in the shrimp farming pond in time, helping the shrimps to grow and develop well.

At present, the project has assembled and installed a set of sensors to measure the parameters of pH, DO, water temperature; created a set of parameters to teach AI to identify ideal parameters and the variation of parameters in the water environment; created artificial intelligence devices to early warning of changes in pH, DO, the temperature of the water environment ...

Furthermore, realistic data and predictive data have been uploaded to a web named "High technology shrimp farming". Through the website, shrimp farmers can promptly update the fluctuations of pH, DO, water temperature in shrimp ponds.

Nguyen Viet Hung, class 11A4, Hon Gai High School, Ha Long City, shared that the development direction of the topic chosen by his team was to continue applying AI for early warning of pH, DO, and temperature factors of the shrimp farming water environment.

Through the prediction of the speed and time that pH value, DO, and temperature change in the shrimp farming water environment, the farmers will have the ability to well manage the parameters of the shrimp farming environment through mobile phones and computers under the form of graphs.

“In the near future, we will continue to expand the topic of surveillance systems, thereby enhancing the stability and reliability of the sensor system by equipping sensors of reputable manufacturers, equip more wireless connections to facilitate users, and at the same time deploy into App on smartphones”.

(Nguyen Thanh Long, class 11A4, Hon Gai High School, Ha Long City)