One of the very last components to heating our new Grow-out Greenhouse is bringing electricity to fire up the boilers. Below is a picture of the electric box and conduits. The work is almost complete, we will be firing up the heaters soon!
Archive for the ‘Construction’ Category
Electricty in the New Grow-out Greenhouse
Monday, November 30th, 2009Grow-out Greenhouse Filtration, Part 3
Monday, November 23rd, 2009We have been posting about the two different types of filtration in our new Grow-out Greenhouse. Today’s post will explain our Polygeyser setup. For this particular filtration system, we bought an off the shelf filter with no pre-filtration. However, instead of using the suction pressure it is gravity fed. According to the manual, we can feed up to 10lbs of food per day per system. While this is a smaller footprint than the vortex system, the price tag is higher at about $3800. The big advantage to this system is that it automatically backwashes using a small amount of air. Both the vortex system and the Polygeyser are both air driven to dump dirt and water. They are both set to do this automatically six times a day. This is how we attempted to level the playing field between the two different systems.
Indirect Heating System Added to Nisai Greenhouse
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009In an earlier post, we showed the copper tubing running underground from our new Grow-out Greenhouse to our Nisai Greenhouse. We have just finished the installation of the new heat exchanger in the Nisai Greenhouse. Whereas the heat exchangers in the new Grow-out Greenhouse are external to the water, this heat exchanger is set inside the filter pit. It is a series of coils that are filled with the warmed water, which heats the surrounding pond water. We installed it in the filter pit instead of the actual tank just so that the koi would not injure themselves if they brushed up against. The system we are heating contain our BETN koi and our 555 koi.
![Grid[1]](http://www.qualitykoi.com/koi-fish-blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Grid1.jpg "Grid[1]")
Grow-out Greenhouse Filtration, Part 2
Monday, November 16th, 2009As promised, we’d like to share some details about the different filtration systems we are using in our Grow-out Greenhouse. This greenhouse is designed for the growing of our small high-quality koi. These koi were chosen during their harvest this fall. There are 12, 10’ diameter fiberglass tanks, approximately 1800 gallons each. Every set of two tanks has its own filtration. Three sets of two tanks are using our new vortex system and the other three sets of tanks are using Polygeysers. Today’s post will go into more details about the vortex system.
For the filtration, we utilized two vortexes for each system. One is setup as a true gravity fed vortex for settlement (mechanical filtration). We have branched off the waste line to an airlift so that we can do periodic automated dumps of the accumulated solids. This will allow us to do set water changes per day. The other one has been adapted for a central aeration source to mobilize K1 (moving bed, media). This design resulted in a very small amount of air to drive 13 cubic feet of K1. We have learned that a cylinder shape uses the least amount of air to mobilize K1. Lastly, with the 13 cubic feet of K1, we should be able to feed 4lbs of food per day per system.
To summarize, the vortex system allowed us to purchase an off the shelf stand filter and retrofit it to use K1. This was advantageous due to its low cost of approximately $2000. The disadvantage is that it takes up a larger footprint. For your pond setup, space is something important to consider.
Keep an eye out for the post that details our Polygeyser setup…
The Answer is NOT the Answer
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009Well, the time has finally come…after 7 years of working with the Answer and Nexus we are moving on. Back in 2002 we originally bought the prototype Nexus system in stainless steel. We have utilized this filtration in many of our greenhouses, each tweaked a bit to work for different configurations. The bottom line is that the Answer can’t handle our organic load. It requires too much maintanence, and as many of you know, it’s no fun cleaning those screens!!!
For our mechanical filtration we are moving on to the Ultra Sieve 3 by Sibo, and a Polygeyser for the biological filtration. The Ultra Sieve utilizes a passive screen technology. Essentially the water falls down and through a parabolic screen. The screen captures the waste and is taken out separately, while the clean water flows through. This is much better than in the Answer system where the waste sits on the bottom of the water. Below are some pictures of the guys moving one of our old Answer/Nexus out. In this footprint, the Ultra Sieve and Polygeyser will be installed.
New Heating System in Grow-out Greenhouse, Part 5
Friday, November 6th, 2009Now that all of the Polygeyser systems have had the heat exchanger fully plumbed, we are working to complete the vortex based systems. In this set of systems the heat exchanger is hung horizontally, rather than vertically. Below is a picture of the first completed one.
New Heating System in Grow-out Greenhouse, Part 4
Thursday, November 5th, 2009One of the last tasks to be completed in the installation of the Indirect Heating System in our new Growout Greenhouse is some plumbing. We will be using PVC plumbing to take water from the tanks and send it into the heat exchanger. Once inside the heat exchanger the water will be heated indirectly be the hot water filled tubes. The tank water will then flow back into the tank. These are two of the completed systems.
New Heating System in Grow-out Greenhouse, Part 3
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009Refering back to the new heating system we have installed in our Growout Greenhouse (Part 1 and Part 2), we are going to send this warm water to an adjacent greenhouse. In the front of our Nisai Greenhouse, we have the BETN koi and our other very high quality nisai, which you can view in our online catalog. To provide these koi with the optimal growing conditions, we are not only heating the air but also the water. We have run insulated copper plumbing underground from the Growout Greenhouse to the Nisai Greenhouse. There are lines for both the feed and the return. The one major difference however, is that the heat exchanger for the Nisai Greenhouse is underwater in the tank, whereas the heat exchanger in the Growout Greenhouse is external to the tank.
New Heating System in Grow-out Greenhouse, Part 2
Friday, October 30th, 2009Whereas the last post described how we are now heating the water in our Grow-out Greenhouse, this post will describe how we are heating the air. The primary purpose of also heating the air is to keep the air about two degrees warmer than the water so that we won’t have condensation continually forming on the inside roof of the greenhouse. In order to accomplish this we will utilize a similar method as to how we are heating the water. Hot water produced from our boilers will be carried through copper plumbing and up to a Modine heater suspended from a metal greenhouse bow. The hot water will flow through the heater and a fan will blow the warm air across the greenhouse.
New Heating System in Grow-out Greenhouse, Part 1
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009In an earlier post, I started to discuss the filtration aspect of our new Grow-out Greenhouse. This post will begin to discuss our new indirect heating system that is currently being installed in the greenhouse. The purpose of the Grow-out Greenhouse is to increase the length and mass of our smaller high-grade koi.
The majority of our other greenhouses have heating systems where propane is utilized to heat the air and subsequently heat the water. There are many inherent problems with this system, the largest one being inefficiency. Since heat rises, much of the heat escapes through the roof. Also, when the heat is raised to 78 degrees the water only reaches 65-66 degrees. At this temperature koi will not put on the size we are trying to achieve and we are not able to feed them a high protein food.
Our new indirect heating system utilizes six heat exchangers (one per system) and two boilers. Each boiler is 150,000 BTU which is more efficient than one 300,000 BTU boiler because having two allows for stage firing. The boilers are powered by propane to heat water. This water travels through copper piping into the greenhouse. We chose copper because the spanning between brackets is 5 feet, and copper won’t bow, buckle, or degrade in the sun. The water in the copper will never come in contact with the koi (copper is toxic to koi). The heated water is brought into a heat exchanger. The heat exchanger is filled with many tubes, which are filled with the heated water. The pond water also enters the heat exchanger, but it surrounds the outside of the tubes. Through this indirect contact, the pond water is heated and brought back into the ponds through PVC plumbing. In the picture of the heat exchanger you will not see the PVC plumbing, as that is one of the jobs to be done this week.
This system of indirect heating gets the water much warmer than it would if we were to heat the air. Also, it provides a more consistent water temperature. Each system will also have its own thermostat so that it can adjust the heat automatically should one system become cooler, such as during a water change. We will now be able to heat the water to our ideal 76-78 degrees.
While the initial investment to setup this system is more expensive, the cost to operate it will be considerably less expensive due to its efficiency.
Photo of a vertically installed heat exchanger (PVC portion that brings the pond water into and out of the heat exchanger is not yet plumbed). This is the installation for the “Polygeyser” systems.
Photo of heat exchanger
Photo of horizontally installed heat exchanger (PVC portion that brings pond water into and out of the heat exchanger still to be plumbed). This is the installation setup for the “vortex” systems.
Photo of the boiler room. They are setup in a shed located outside of the greenhouse.