Fish barrels and water research

I have been trying to figure out how to combine our fish barrel project with the GaugeCam project on which Christian and I work with NCSU.  The object of that project is to measure the level of water in rivers, lakes, barrels, etc.  Eventually, we will want to measure the surface velocity of the water with cameras, too.  Right now, we always have to get the images we want to evaluate from the server Christian set up in the Ag Engineering lab.  It would be kind of nice to have a setup of our own.  I think we can kill two birds with one stone.  The idea I have is to set up two half barrels that hold goldfish.  We could put a series of bamboo troughs and pipes between them and use a camera measure the water level in each of the barrels and our little Arduino controller to control the movement of water between the two barrels.  It would have an appearance with sufficient aesthetic appeal for Lorena to allow us to put the thing on the front porch.  I like it.  We could even put some lily pads in it!