Greenhouse project

[dave2184]

Looking good:thumbsup: Oh and just a reminder i'll see you sunday.

 

[partagas]

Dendro, great Idea. I have a couple of questions. What are you looking to get product wise. I mean, how many frags do you think you can grow ? I have been thinking of doing the same thing with one of my dad's grren houses. He has two that are 80'x300. And the next question is. Is their really a market for that many? I was also thinking of using the extra sapce to resell LR. Since I would already have the water flow, why not use it for that.

I will being keeping an eye on this thread........

Thanks

Darryl

 

[dendronepthya]

What are you looking to get product wise. I mean, how many frags do you think you can grow ?

That figure is still up for debate. I've made some rough estimates, but I will get much better information by actually doing it. Right now, I figure the full 3000+ gallon facility should be able to hold about 3500 corals at any given time. The turnover will of course depend on the coral in question. Some will be able to be propagated much faster than others. Some may not be fast sellers. I plan on keeping a variety of hard and soft corals including some propagated LPS. I doubt that those can be done profitably, but I'm willing to experiment a little in the beginning.

And the next question is. Is their really a market for that many?

The market estimate I found was the marine coral industry does about $90 million per year. I don't think I could supply that amount of coral if I had a 200,000 gallon facility. I do not know how accurate that figure is, but assuming it is true, there is plenty of demand.

 

[dave2184]

I would agree theres plenty of demand espesially in this area. The LFS (the few that there are) dont tend to keep some of the harder stuff as they can't utilize alot of there time worrying about it's health. So they tend to carry alot of stuff they can throw into there system and know that it will survive for at least a little while with little if any effort. Don't get me wrong there are a few LFS around that actually care but there far and few between. besides most would rather deal with someone who actually is in the hobby as aposed to the guy down the road who doesn't even have a fresh water setup let alone a salt. It would also be nice to have someone within driving distance that would carry stuff others wouldn't becase they don't ship well but could survive a drive of a few hours. Also your central location makes it nice for others in this state that have to make a long distance trip just to get to a desent LFS (myself included). I wish you the best of luck and look forward to doing buisness with you in the future.

 

[H20ENG]

The only thing that has me wondering right now is whether I can use a high output blower for airlifts and reverse carlson surge devices or will I need a compressor to handle a higher pressure load. Not too many people have statistics on the backpressure of reverse carlson surge devices.

Dendro,
Great thread and project!
I have run a lot of blowers at a public aquarium. Blowers are pressure rated in how many inches of water (depth) they can push. If your RCSDs are in the tank, the blower will be pushing no harder than to the airlifts. Try to get all the air discharge lines at the same level in the tanks and RCSDs so they will stay fairly equal. Obviously, the air will flow the path of least resistance, so if you have a few airlines in shallow water, they will get the most air.
The larger blowers we ran were rated to 55". This is deep for these kinds of compressors, and they run HOT at that backpressure. We had to open a bybass valve slightly to cool the unit. We used schedule 80 pipe for 10' past the outlet. Sch 40 became so hot it softened and drooped. You can get metal piping for this length as well ( I hated metal working there!!)
Your tubs should only be 30" or so IIRC. So spec your blower to a little deeper than that and you should be good to go.
The heat given off by the blower will definitely warm the greenhouse, so it may save on gas heat.
Be sure and keep the filters clean. These things will cook their bearings if they starve for air. I used some filters from aquatic ecosystems. I made a manifold of 4 filters so as not to restrict any airflow.
HTH, Fire away any more Q's.
Chris

 

[dendronepthya]

H20ENG,
Now that you mention it, I do have a question regarding the blower ratings. I have often read the rating measured in inches, but I do not know exactly how to interpret it. Let's say for instance that I have ten airlifts running on one blower. Each airlift is 24" tall. Is the pressure in the blower just 24" or is the depth cumulative making the depth actually 240"?

Assuming the pressure is only 24", would there be any difference if there was ten airlifts or a hundred on the pressure?

Right now, I am planning on buying a 1 HP Aquatic ecosystems blower. I am basing that completely on the price I am willing to pay:

http://www.aquaticeco.com/aquatic1v...ier=ID10661895346717C0615&iteminfo4=0&eflag=0

I would like for this blower to run ninety-six - 24" airlifts and twelve - 12" x 24" RCSD's. Is this realistic?

 

[photobarry]

I just took some measurements today at noon with my Apogee Quantum meter. It is a partly cloudy day today, and I was getting the following readings:
Outside:
1000-2000 micro-einsteins depending on cloud cover.

Inside the Greenhouse:
450-950 micro-einsteins depending on cloud cover.

My tank at home:
650-680 micro-einsteins
The lights I have over my tank are 250W DE HQI with 440W or VHO actinic. The MH bulbs are quite old however.

Looks good. Remember that light intensity decreases as a function of the square of the distance from the source. That means that intensity drops drastically in our tanks due to the light source being so close. In the greenhouse it will hardly decrease at all since the sun is just a bit further away. Corals gonna like that!

 

[H20ENG]

Dendro,
According to your link, It looks like that blower will push about 68 cfm of air at a 24" depth. This 68 CFM will be divided evenly among your airstones IF they are all the same depth. This is assuming you have enough air stones to flow 68 CFM (likely with 100 stones, check their rated flow when ordering).
You could have 1000 airlines going into a 24"deep tank, and the pump will "see" 24" of headpressure. Like the bottom of the tank, at any point it will only see that points depth.
The RCSD, as long as it is 24" deep too, will just act like another 24" deep air outlet, even though the air it has expelled is trapped above it in the RCSD. So there is no more backpressure than any other airstone.
HTH
Chris

 

[minfinger]

Update?

 

[maxxII]

cool thread, taggin along
Nick

 

[metamorphis]

Now that you mention it, I do have a question regarding the blower ratings....

I am a freshwater fish breeder (anyone else an AKA member??), and it seems that blowers are on their way out. Nowadays, they are considered noisy, inefficient, and labor intensive.

Literally speaking, almost every single breeder I know has switched to Linear Piston Pumps from Jehmco. They are quiet, use significantly less electricity, need nearly zero maintenance, run at a lot higher pressure, and last forever. I would highly recommend looking into a Linear piston pump instead of a blower. Just thought I'd toss that in there. Whatever you decide, make sure you give John @ Jehmco a call. He's the most knowledgable person I've ever met on the subject, and has awesome customer service to boot.

Kris

 

[adrianthomp]

any more pics of the green house?:

 

[dendronepthya]

Sorry for the update delays. Law school has been a little time consuming. Anyhow, the greenhouse is progressing slowly. We had a run of bad weather so we did not get as much done as we would have liked. The greenhouse structure is built for the most part, and now we are in the process of installing the utilities. The electrical guys are almost done, and soon we will have water and gas.

I hope to have some photos soon. There isn't that much new though. Once I start setting up tanks I'll be sure to have plenty to show.

metamorphis,
I went to the site you recommended. The problem that I see is the linear piston air pump puts out a fraction of the air that a regenerative blower puts out. Jehmco even suggests using a blower for large applications with lots of air outlets. If I were to go with the piston pumps, I would have to buy at least 6 compared to the single 1 HP blower.

 

[metamorphis]

metamorphis,
I went to the site you recommended. The problem that I see is the linear piston air pump puts out a fraction of the air that a regenerative blower puts out. Jehmco even suggests using a blower for large applications with lots of air outlets. If I were to go with the piston pumps, I would have to buy at least 6 compared to the single 1 HP blower.

The specs on those are a little decieving. A buddy of mine replaced his 1/2hp blower with the largest size LPP, and he says he gets more air at higher pressure than with the blower. This is with 150+ outlets and a 48" deep storage barrel. Even if you had to purchase 2 or 3 LPP's, a 1 hp blower eats up 12(!!) amps whereas the LPP's only use 120 watts apiece. Running 24/7, the electricity savings add up.

But honestly, I have no idea how much air you really need. And I'm biased. I loooooove my LPP. Good luck.

 

[kozmo02]

i can't wait to see pics, this is such an awesome project.

 

[robitreef]

There is a coral grower outside of the Chicago suburbs that grows his corals in a greenhouse. It was actually an old brick equipment shed on a farm that was converted into a greenhouse. He runs 6500K Iwasakis during the winter/late afternoon for all his tanks. Sell's softies, LPS and SPS. Also has clams and live rock. He used to sell out of his green house, but then he was found to be in violation of the area zoning laws, so he had to setup a store. As far as I know he still grows mainly out of the greenhouse. He has some really cool surge devices for his growout tanks that consist of large rubber trash cans elevated on approx 5-6' platforms. They are plumbed with pvc pipes that go into the tanks (which are actually large troughs full of corals). The elevation of the trash cans causes a downward force that gives a nice wave action in the sps tanks. I don't know his specs, but that is something you may want to consider.

 

[dendronepthya]

metamorphis,
Thanks for the information. I am talking with a person at that company now to see if the pumps are a good fit for my application. Right now, it would appear I would need two of their largest pumps ($900 total) to service a system my size. The only reason I am considering this is because the pumps use up a lot less electricity than the blower does.

robitreef,
What your friend is using is a carlson surge device. Water is pumped up to a storage tank, and when the water level hits a critical point, it quickly siphons back down into the main tank creating a surge. The surge devices I am considering are reverse carlson designs. They mount inside the tank and use air pumps to displace the water.

 

[dendronepthya]

Here are some updated photos. This is what the greenhouse looks like now. The structure for the most part is done.

Here is the 48" exhaust fan that will be the main source of cooling in the summer.

Here is the gas heater that will be warming the greenhouse in the winter.

 

[kevin gu3]

I'm jealous. Heck, even Dick Perrin'l be jealous. Question: why did you go for double-pane polycarbonate instead of triple?

 

[Algae Blenny]

Looks great. I can't wait to see the finished product and your website.