2nd Greenhouse prop system - Page 2

Treeman · #26 11/23/2004, 02:31 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by slave-of-rock
wow that thing is amazing!! are you specialzing in any special type of zoos or are you just getting some nice ones and growwin them like weeds? tell us when your ready to sell!!!

I am picking nice ones and growing as many as I can. I can't keep up as it is

I sell wholesale only. I sell to a place in woodale, I think it is. He is just west of Chicago by 30 minutes. PM if you want his name and number.

hemostat · #27 11/24/2004, 10:45 PM

Coming along beautifully Matt! So nice to see dreams become a reality.

Rocky!!- Hope you are hanging tough man

Still trying to pick up the pieces at the store from the disaters and I know you got smacked as well. I need to drop you a mail soon to catch up, but wanted to pop in and say hey.

Both of you(Rocky and Matt) have my best wishes and I hope to be able to share with you both soon the workings of the last year and the HUGE coral aquaculture facility we have been consulting on and just beginning to set up raceways in. Planned to be 3-4 times the size of ORA's facility with a focus on gene pooling species and reef restorations. Currently we only do Caribbean reefs, but are working on dotting the i's on the program to work on Pacific reefs as well after natural and man-made devistations.

I'll catch up with you guys after the holidays, and have a very safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Peace, the tall goofy guy in Vero Beach!

slave-of-rock · #28 11/25/2004, 12:48 AM

i know of that place, ive been there a few times, nice wholesaler, tell me when you sell to him, almost every shop in this area buys form him haa, so if you have already sold i probly have some of your corals in my tank

Gerard Alba · #29 11/25/2004, 07:20 PM

Very cool project.

kmk2307 · #30 12/08/2004, 02:50 PM

So... how is it going? Any updated pictures? Thanks for sharing. Also, sorry if I missed it, what kind of trees do you grow?

Kevin

Bullredchaser · #31 12/08/2004, 03:33 PM

Wow,when you told me you had a green house at the meeting I had no idea how large it really was. Its truly amazing.

Treeman · #32 12/08/2004, 07:58 PM

Sorry, I haven't posted any more pics lately. I have been crazy at work. We are moving the plants out of one side of the GH to put up 2 more systems. I will be putting more pics up soon.

I grow mostly palms in the field and a few different ornamental shrubs in containers.

Its a pretty good size GH now I just need to find the stock to fill it. I am trying to find TR zoos, but that is hard to do or I have been looking in the wrong places.

Treeman · #33 12/22/2004, 09:58 PM

The exchanger is not working very well. I know it is a little hokey. But they wanted $1200 for a titanium one, so that didn't fly. I think I have found some for about 60% of that so I may bite the bullet.

I can't get the pic to show.

4Texans · #34 12/23/2004, 03:02 AM

Perhaps you should consider a different design for you heat exchanger. Please do not take offense, but you do not have a very large area to transfer heat. (If I am seeing your exchanger correctly.)

I was planning on doing something like a large coil of flexible tubing (plenty of options here for food safe, flexible tubing, see US Plastics) inside a large piece of pvc pipe, capped at both ends. There are other options along those lines. The key is that the you use a large coil in a moving bath to transfer the heat. Example, skip the pipe and put the coils in the base of your tanks.

I do not know if this image will show but the URL should...

The image does not show too well, but you need in input and output port for the bath and the same for the coil. The pipe in the image looks far too small to me. If it were me I would make it as large as my budget would allow. (And of course I would test my design on a small scale first.)

Treeman · #35 12/24/2004, 09:53 AM

No offense taken. I thought it may not work, but I had to try. It was cheap and easy. I don't like the tube idea because it takes away some of the flow to the tanks. If you use it on the drain side then you have to worry about it becoming clogged and overflowing. Or letting it flow in such a way as to not be a full pipe and then it isn't as efficient. The way I have it is good because there is no resriction and it can flow easily. The pipes are supposed to be completely submerged but I realized later that I couldn't have the water level that high. I think I will spend the money on a titanium one soon.

Treeman · #36 12/24/2004, 09:55 AM

Maybe I could put it on the drain side with a "T" that would let the water level fill the pipe and the excess would bypass it?

4Texans · #37 12/24/2004, 02:06 PM

If you are concerned about the coils getting too dirty make the tube really big like glue flexible pvc to the inside wall of 55 Gal plastic drum, or line your entire sump with it.

Another idea I thought of was to use the plastic tube mats (used for solar heating of swimming pools). You could put them in your tanks under the sand (may not need to paint them white with aquaculture paint if under sand), or you could line your drain sump with one (would need to be painted white.).

A figure for a mat used to collect heat for a swimming pool.

One of the problems with this is that they contain carbon black...

If there was some way to use small pieces of flexible tubing to connect each column to the next, you could line your sump with double-wall polycarbonate and run the cool water inside the polycarbonate.

Seems like you could run pvc much like you did for your geothermal heat sink, right in your tanks. One or two straight pieces of pvc from one side of your set-up to the other would have a fair amout of surface area....

Let us know how the titanium one works out. :-)

ab5ebdxer · #38 12/27/2004, 09:15 AM

Do you know what the temp of the water is where you have the exchanger? If it is around 75 then it is not going to cool a temp of 80 much. I guess in theory if you had one long enough you should be able to cool to 75. With the water level being so high what is the winter temp like?

Treeman · #39 12/27/2004, 10:07 PM

Well, that seems to be the problem. The temp probes seem to say that the ground water fluctuates just about like the air temps. I don't believe it. I think the temp probes are not working properly. They are made for this purpose. I think they are gathering the temp from the air also. I think the ground water temp is around 74 degrees. I am not so worried about cooling when the temps are so close. I am trying to keep it above 72 and below 82. And 72 is to low but it is bearable.

I have about 90' of 1/2" pvc in the sump acting as an exchanger. The pool heater grids look promising.

gpajon · #40 12/27/2004, 10:28 PM

Matt,

I don't think there is anything wrong with the probes. Back in August and september I was having problems with my loop. The Best I was getting was 80 deg at night from the loop. I dug a new trench at about 7' and hit water as I did the first time and the water temp out of the ground was 80 deg. That was where I gave up on trying to cool with the geothermal loop. It appears that we are so far south that somehow the water table is too shallow and is heated from solar radiation.

Gon

ctenophore · #41 12/30/2004, 12:24 PM

I've been studying this as well. The problem is that the plastic exchanger is just not efficient enough to handle such a small delta T (difference between ground & tank water). I was looking into Ti exchangers (like the ones on aquatic ecosystems' site) and they approach 100% efficiency, i.e., 82 deg. tank water goes in at one end and comes out at ground water temp at the other. The problem is, you will need extremely high flow rates on both the ground loop and the tank loop to keep your tank volume chilled, which requires big pumps etc. ($$ and more heat). Basically, geotherm isn't practical in FL, even north FL where I am. Several aquaculture engineers at UF have shown me this as well.

Unless... One last idea I am exploring before giving up on geotherm is to drill a standard vertical well and pull 70-72 deg water from the aquifer in an open loop. Run this water through the Ti exchanger(s) and right back into the ground- not a closed loop. It sounds like wasting water, but I've been told by ecologist friends of mine that the water will just percolate right back into the aquifer unharmed. This is better than a vertical closed loop since I am guaranteed 70-72 year-round in as much quantity as my well pump will deliver. I haven't yet done the math on how much groundwater volume will be required for the BTUs of cooling needed in my facility for a 10deg delta T (70 -> 80), nor factored in pump cost & electricity. This method will definitely be cheaper than drilling vertical closed loops, since one well should be able to service my entire facility with a big enough pump, as opposed to one 100' vert. well for each 10K BTUs of heat transfer (assuming near 100% efficient exchangers)

Anyway, just throwing that out there. I'm not meaning to discourage anyone but so far, the numbers don't lie.

Treeman · #42 12/30/2004, 11:54 PM

Yes, I agree with you. I have a 120' well now. I have thought about checking the temp at the bottom. I will see where it is at and let you all know. Maybe that is the answer. I wouldn't even waste any becouse I could flow it into some tanks and use it for irrigation water for my container nursery.

acropora1981 · #43 01/03/2005, 11:48 AM

this is really awesome...as soon as i finish my degree im doing this.

sandman12 · #44 01/14/2005, 04:28 PM

How did u figure out how many feed u needed for the geothermal cooling and how deep to put it? Iam planning a small green house system with about 250g of water. What size shoud my geothermal system be and how deep in the ground? Iam not sure of ur geothermal system works. U have 6 pipes, would the water just flow through all of them and burst. Where does the water come out is what i dont understand.

Treeman · #45 01/15/2005, 09:20 PM

Hey there!

You can do the geo 2 ways: One is a loop that saltwater is pumped thru (that is the easiest-short term) and the other is a loop that freshwater is pumped thru and a type of exchanger is installed to transfer heat/cool to the saltwater.

The geo is just an underground loop. I have 6 pipes - 3 out and 3 back. I have a 65 gal. tank. The pump pulls water from the tank and pushes it into the pipes in the ground and thru the exchanger and it falls back into the tank where the pump pulls it out again.

Treeman · #46 01/15/2005, 09:24 PM

I was talking to Rocky the other day and he said you should have as much water volume in the ground as in your tanks. If understood right. But (this is a big one), it depends on the amount of sun, how much shade cloth, what your tanks are made out of, how hot it is in the GH etc... It depends on all the factors trying to make the tank hot or cold.

gpajon · #47 01/15/2005, 10:14 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Treeman
Hey there!

You can do the geo 2 ways: One is a loop that saltwater is pumped thru (that is the easiest-short term) and the other is a loop that freshwater is pumped thru and a type of exchanger is installed to transfer heat/cool to the saltwater.

The geo is just an underground loop. I have 6 pipes - 3 out and 3 back. I have a 65 gal. tank. The pump pulls water from the tank and pushes it into the pipes in the ground and thru the exchanger and it falls back into the tank where the pump pulls it out again.

Matt,

What pump are you running on your loop?

Gon

Treeman · #48 01/15/2005, 10:21 PM

A Sweetwater, about 50 - 65 gpm. Uses 3 amps.
Got it at Aquatic Ecosystems. DO you need any tubs. I am going to order som 8'x2'x1' fiberglass tanks.

Are you going to make it to the meeting at MIami Seaqarium?

ctenophore · #49 01/15/2005, 11:18 PM

Are you guys going to order those 8x2x1 raceways from Aquatic Ecosystems? If so, post some pics and let me know how they work out. From what I can find, those are the most cost effective options out there in terms of cost per unit surface area. How are you planning on supporting them?

gpajon · #50 01/15/2005, 11:48 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Treeman
A Sweetwater, about 50 - 65 gpm. Uses 3 amps.
Got it at Aquatic Ecosystems. DO you need any tubs. I am going to order som 8'x2'x1' fiberglass tanks.

Are you going to make it to the meeting at MIami Seaqarium?

I just got 2 tubs from my friend Bryen of Fish Collection (Freebies) 6'x2'x1'.

I will try to be at the meeting but I can't say for sure. I will know better towards the end of the week.

Gon