Greenhouse project

Thanks guys. I wish I had more time to work on setting stuff up. I basically get to work on the greenhouse on the weekends, but I think about it constantly. When more stuff is installed, I'll be sure to post updated pics.

In the mean time, here is one more picture. You can see the linear piston air pump that was suggested earlier. It is the largest model that is made currently by Sweetwater (Aquatic Ecosystems). I was hoping that it would be able to run all the air lifts in the greenhouse, but it doesn't have anywhere near the output to do that. Still, it can adequately power two of the 300-gallon tanks for a mere 130W of electricity. Even though I will have to buy two more to run the entire greenhouse, the electrical savings will essentially pay for them in 12 months or so.
linear%20piston.jpg
 
No matter if you are doing this for profit, or just plain fun, it is great to see people getting serious about aquaculture. The less toll that we take on the worlds reefs the better. Best of luck to you! Jason
 
This is awesome.. and something that I have been kind of dreaming about lately. Maybe I can find someone around my area with a coral farm and intern a little. Its very intriguing to me.
 
A reverse Carlson surge device is basically an upside down bucket that is pushed under water. You know when you try to push the bucket down, it is difficult because the air that is trapped is making the bucket bouyant. Imagine then that there was suddenly a hole in the top of the bucket. The air would rush out and the water would be quickly sucked back into the bucket. The water rushing back into the bucket creates a surge. The RCSD gets fed air from an air pump which fills the bucket and forces the water out. Once it hits a threshold, the air escapes from the bucket and water is sucked in. After it is done surging, it fills back up with air.

RCSD's blow like a whale spout when they fire, so it takes some work to muffle the exhaust. They are great for aquaculture applications, but not so practical for the home aquarium.
 
My friend and I did a little more work on the greenhouse the other day and he brought his camera. WARNING: the pictures that follow are more for the plumbing geeks than the average aquarist.

The first image here is the draining of the 300-gallon tank. We were going to plumb the tanks together which required the the test tank to be drained. I was also curious to see how well the greenhouse handled 300 gallons suddenly poured in one spot. Amazingly, the area was dry in about 5 min. There is an 8" gravel bed, and it did a great job of taking the water.
g_draining.jpg


This is a shot of the reverse Carlson and the airline manifold.
g_rcsd.jpg


To connect the tanks, I decided to use true union ball valves. They cost quite a bit of money, but I am building these greenhouse systems with flexibility and modularity in mind. If I ever need to shut off one tank and remove it altogether, I can simply close the valve and unscrew either end of it.
g_true_union.jpg


Continuing with the theme of easy maintenance and flexibility, I decided to install drain valves at the bottom of each of the tanks. Before, there was just a plug. With a valve in place, it gives me a lot more control of the flow rate and I can easily plumb a hose to the barbed fitting.
g_drain_valve.jpg


Later that night, my buddy and I returned to the greenhouse. I just thought this was a neat picture of the greenhouse at night with the lights on.
g_night.jpg


We wanted to test the valves and bulkheads we installed earlier in the day as well as the air system. It took roughly 1.5 hours to fill up the entire 750 gallons (two 300-gallons plus the 150-gallon sump).
g_filling.jpg


As I mentioned earlier, I was a little worried that the airpump would not be strong enough to power both of the 300-gallon tanks, however once we actually set it up, the airlifts performed fairly well. The black tubing we were using was 1/2" diameter, and I think if we bumped that up to 3/4" or 1" we would get much better performance from the airlifts and surge device.
g_pump.jpg


The last image is of the tank all filled with airlifts running. As you can see, there is a good amount of water movement in the tank with a periodic surge going off every 30 seconds or so.
g_filled.jpg


Again, thanks for taking a look.
 
Very Impressive Than! I'm jealous of your green houses potential.
hopefully soon you'll be up and running and we'll have another online coral farmer to buy from!
Nick
 
Will the airlifts foam like a protein skimmer, or are the stones that you use the kind that produce large bubbles?
 
Thanks for all the complements. I'm pretty excited about the progress that's been made as well.

kozmo02,
Right now, the two major issues I am dealing with are getting large quantities of purified water, and salt mix. Once I have that stuff worked out, I will put some test corals into the tanks. My display tank right now is crawling with oversized corals that could use a trim. I'd like to say that I should have everything I need in a month's time, but a delay would not surprise me one bit. I'll be posting updates as they happen so people will have a pretty good idea of when the systems will have stock in them.

robwsup,
The airlifts do not have stones at the bottom. I have found that large bubbles move water better than small bubbles, and they also do not create nearly as bad of a microbubble problem. In the lift tubes, there is a 1/2" black tube (same stuff you see attached to the pump). That does a really good job of making large bubbles that move water.
 
That is an absolutely awesome setup! I hope to do something like that on a smaller scale when I'm done with college and settled down. That's like 10 years from now, but hey, I can dream and plan!:D
 
Ooooh Yeahhhh!

Ooooh Yeahhhh!

WOW! I love the rubbermaid and Airliftrack/CSD setup! OMG that is sooo sweet the way you set that up Dendro! Ok a couple of questions if you dont mind?

The CSD and the Airlift racks ....with all the air being applied to them im sure makes them somewat bouyant how are you keeping them stationery?

Did GEO build your CSD?

Thanks for sharing :D Totally awesome job!
 
Hey scubadude, how's it going. I'm thrilled with how the airlifts came together. I was originally planning on having the frame to hold the eggcrate separate from the airlifts, but I figured, why not incorporate the lifts into the frame itself. I'm glad that I did that because the setup is far more elegant and streamlined.

The frame interestingly enough is not bouyant. I would have been prepared to weight it down, but it never was necessary. The RCSD on the other hand absolutely must be weighed down. I use two cinder blocks to hold it still.

Geo is the man! First-rate fabricator and the nicest guy to boot. He put the RCSD together for me. It was the first one he ever made, so we had no idea whether it would work or not. Our attitude was basically, "let's hook it up and see if it explodes." Now that we have a slightly better idea of how it works, I'm having him build me some larger ones that are more nasty.
 
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