IAm5toned
Well-Known Member
As some of you may know from previous posts I have made, sometimes, my work, takes me to some strange places. Some of those places are pretty cool, some of them, suck sweaty donkey nuts. Well this is one of the former....
This past week, one of my projects happens to claim to have the largest indoor hydroponics system in the united states. This system is used to supply nutirents and such to their 9 acres of ornamental indoor horticulture.
Due to the conditions on site (mainly disaster recovery and the sheer scale of the system) I was only able to snap a few quick pics with my cell phone camera, so they are not of the best quality.
But, on to the good stuff-
Here is a typical area of the system. note the height of the greenhouse...lol, and the height of the trees there feeding! those white pipes, there feeder tubes... 2 inch feeder tubes.
here you can see a buried 6 inch pipe acting as a post-manifold supply line to some of those feeder tubes- note the size of the rootmass of the palm in the background.
ordinarily, the areas surrounding the feeder tubes are covered with a few tons of hydroton.
and a close up of the feeder tubes. the bar code-looking slots is where the nutrient solution leaches into the hydroton medium.
so what controls all those feeder tubes?, well, a valve farm!
look at these control valves... my god man! there are 276 of them please keep in mind those are 2inch pipes! thats alotta volume... you can see a rather large 12 inch manifold at the bottom, with some 6 inch bypass lines coming off of it-
and a better shot of the manifold-
(2) 7 horsepower pumps provide the force to move such a massive amount of liquid.
for those of you not familiar with motor sizes, 7hp is pretty damn big! One acts as a circulator, one injects nutrient solution and RO watr into the system, and any other additives.
did I say RO water? there must be an RO filter around here somewhere... let me see if i can find it. here it is, in a room by itself.... there is actually 2 filter systems here, working in tandem. idk why they have it set up like that, but just that they do. im assuming for redundancy reasons. sorry about the jerky image, but i got separated from the group walkthrough/tour thingy and had to act quick, lol. note the 12 foot ladder in the background, gives you an idea of how large those filter canisters are. they have a rail mounted winch on the ceiling to lift to wet cartridges after there spent-
the nutrient concentrate injection tank... on the right, that is a 2.5 inch copper line, to give you an idea of the size of thing. its about 10-12 feet tall
the PH adjustment system. again, lousy pics, and i have another of the EC meter bank that looks about the same, so i wont even bother posting it, but in this pic, the tank on the right is ph up, and the tank on the left is ph down. i estimate the volume of these tanks @ 1000 gal each. maybe more, i dont know. no horticulturists yet on site to ask silly questions to-
and finally, heat extraction. i mean shit, 9 acres under glass, its going to get hot, right? especially in this climate... fyi, that is a 1 inch pipe hanging in front of the intake. its actually a sampling tube, for air quality and CO2 content. I couldnt find there CO2 system, but I know its there.
So, anyone got greenhouse envy yet?
Dont... lol. It takes a full time staff of 25 workers and 2 botanists just to run and maintain this system!
pretty badass though, so I figured I would share it with you guys.
This past week, one of my projects happens to claim to have the largest indoor hydroponics system in the united states. This system is used to supply nutirents and such to their 9 acres of ornamental indoor horticulture.
Due to the conditions on site (mainly disaster recovery and the sheer scale of the system) I was only able to snap a few quick pics with my cell phone camera, so they are not of the best quality.
But, on to the good stuff-
Here is a typical area of the system. note the height of the greenhouse...lol, and the height of the trees there feeding! those white pipes, there feeder tubes... 2 inch feeder tubes.
here you can see a buried 6 inch pipe acting as a post-manifold supply line to some of those feeder tubes- note the size of the rootmass of the palm in the background.
ordinarily, the areas surrounding the feeder tubes are covered with a few tons of hydroton.
and a close up of the feeder tubes. the bar code-looking slots is where the nutrient solution leaches into the hydroton medium.
so what controls all those feeder tubes?, well, a valve farm!
look at these control valves... my god man! there are 276 of them please keep in mind those are 2inch pipes! thats alotta volume... you can see a rather large 12 inch manifold at the bottom, with some 6 inch bypass lines coming off of it-
and a better shot of the manifold-
(2) 7 horsepower pumps provide the force to move such a massive amount of liquid.
for those of you not familiar with motor sizes, 7hp is pretty damn big! One acts as a circulator, one injects nutrient solution and RO watr into the system, and any other additives.
did I say RO water? there must be an RO filter around here somewhere... let me see if i can find it. here it is, in a room by itself.... there is actually 2 filter systems here, working in tandem. idk why they have it set up like that, but just that they do. im assuming for redundancy reasons. sorry about the jerky image, but i got separated from the group walkthrough/tour thingy and had to act quick, lol. note the 12 foot ladder in the background, gives you an idea of how large those filter canisters are. they have a rail mounted winch on the ceiling to lift to wet cartridges after there spent-
the nutrient concentrate injection tank... on the right, that is a 2.5 inch copper line, to give you an idea of the size of thing. its about 10-12 feet tall
the PH adjustment system. again, lousy pics, and i have another of the EC meter bank that looks about the same, so i wont even bother posting it, but in this pic, the tank on the right is ph up, and the tank on the left is ph down. i estimate the volume of these tanks @ 1000 gal each. maybe more, i dont know. no horticulturists yet on site to ask silly questions to-
and finally, heat extraction. i mean shit, 9 acres under glass, its going to get hot, right? especially in this climate... fyi, that is a 1 inch pipe hanging in front of the intake. its actually a sampling tube, for air quality and CO2 content. I couldnt find there CO2 system, but I know its there.
So, anyone got greenhouse envy yet?
Dont... lol. It takes a full time staff of 25 workers and 2 botanists just to run and maintain this system!
pretty badass though, so I figured I would share it with you guys.
thanx !