Growing Towers

[Mitchell Lowell]

Has anyone used the Future Growing LLC growing towers in a aquaponics application?   I am putting together a commercial aquaponics greenhouse and would like to use this tower system.

[Kobus Jooste]

It will work if you have clean water heading in there.  Nate Story uses his towers with unfiltered water, but if you want to use an aeroponic-type set-up, it will have to be filtered water otherwise the nozzles will clog up all the time.  Your water quality will have to be the same or better than used in rafts, unless you plan to gut the tower and trickle water down from the top.....

[Mitchell Lowell]

Good morning Kobus, I was thinking about the top feeding method and not using the areoponics components at all.  Please tell me more of the raft system requiring very clean water.  I am planning on  building multiple green houses with different systems in each house for specific crops.  Would filtering the water diminish the feed value to the plants?  I kept aquariums for many years and would keep the water that I drained off during cleaning and give it to our plants just as it came out of the tanks.  One banana tree we had planted grew over ten feet in 4 months using this water.  

Kobus Jooste said:

It will work if you have clean water heading in there.  Nate Story uses his towers with unfiltered water, but if you want to use an aeroponic-type set-up, it will have to be filtered water otherwise the nozzles will clog up all the time.  Your water quality will have to be the same or better than used in rafts, unless you plan to gut the tower and trickle water down from the top.....

[Kobus Jooste]

Mitchell - the clean water (filtered water) is only important if you are looking at using hydroponic style equipment with fine tubes or nozzles.  In raft systems, water is passed through a number of filtration and mineralization stages before it goes to the raft.  This is to prevent fines / gunk from building up on the plant roots (they typically have aeration in the raft which means that the fines will not settle out but end up on the roots.  The water still carries all the nutrients, but the filtration stages are put into place before the water reaches the raft.  In these systems, you have a few choices.  Look at the Friendly Aquaponics / Green Acre organics type systems for multi-stage filtration without gravel.  Chris Smith (Coastview Aquaponics) has incorporated gravel into his filtration stages.  Nate Story a has commercial tower design going, but with his own media inside the tower.  I think between these three commercial scale systems, you should be able to find out a lot about what it is that you can do with those towers.

[Mitchell Lowell]

Thank you Kobus, I will follow up on your suggested contacts, Mitchell

Kobus Jooste said:

Mitchell - the clean water (filtered water) is only important if you are looking at using hydroponic style equipment with fine tubes or nozzles.  In raft systems, water is passed through a number of filtration and mineralization stages before it goes to the raft.  This is to prevent fines / gunk from building up on the plant roots (they typically have aeration in the raft which means that the fines will not settle out but end up on the roots.  The water still carries all the nutrients, but the filtration stages are put into place before the water reaches the raft.  In these systems, you have a few choices.  Look at the Friendly Aquaponics / Green Acre organics type systems for multi-stage filtration without gravel.  Chris Smith (Coastview Aquaponics) has incorporated gravel into his filtration stages.  Nate Story a has commercial tower design going, but with his own media inside the tower.  I think between these three commercial scale systems, you should be able to find out a lot about what it is that you can do with those towers.

[Terri Mikkola]

This video shows a commercial grower in Florida (Winter Garden Farmers Market) using what appears to be "Future Growing's" towers.

[Mitchell Lowell]

Greetings Terri, I have seek this video.  It was after watching this video that I began my search for the towers used in the video.  I searched for some time before I found out the towers were made by Future Growing LLC.  I have written to them using their online contact form but  have received no response from them.  Two weeks or more has passed since I last wrote to them.  Did you find an actual listing/contact information for the company in the video?  I searched for the WGFM and did not find a link to the establishment in the video. 

Terri Mikkola said:

This video shows a commercial grower in Florida (Winter Garden Farmers Market) using what appears to be "Future Growing's" towers.

[Terri Mikkola]

Mitchell -

Bell, Book & Candle restaurant in Manhattan, NY uses free standing units for a roof top garden and here's Future Growing's Facebook page.

Terri

[Mitchell Lowell]

Good morning Terri, I have seen this video as well.  Thank you for your efforts.  What I am trying to do is this:  I would like to use the Tower Growing LLC towers with a aquaponics application.  I would like to use a top feed system with a bottom drain back to the fish tanks. Nate Storey has a similar type of system, but is using Zip Towers. My question to the community is relating to this type of application with the Tower Growing LLC towers; has anyone tried it, and if so how did it work for them?  I have written to the company with questions about this type of application information and have not received any communication back to date. If I am not able to purchase these towers alone;  It might be that I will have to build a prototype, do test to find what meets my application needs, and construct them myself.  I have done much mold tooling and reproductions in the marine end of my business and will find what works and manufacture my own towers if I am in need of doing so.  I am already planning on constructing other parts of the systems I will be using to meet my specific application needs .  This is off the tower subject but I am in the northeast and one of the systems I have already put a design together for is insulated solar radiant heat fish tanks with phase shift material coring that will allow me to keep my fish in a warmer environment then their surroundings.  IE- 55 degree earthen insulated room environment / 75 degree tanks.  Mitchell

Terri Mikkola said:

Mitchell -

Bell, Book & Candle restaurant in Manhattan, NY uses free standing units for a roof top garden and here's Future Growing's Facebook page.

Terri

[TCLynx]

Hi Mitchell,

      I don't know if the Skygardens towers are part of the Aquaponics operation or just part of their Hydroponics because they do both last I knew (though I haven't checked that info lately.)

 

I am using some of Nate's Zipgrow towers and they can take unfiltered water though you do have to check the delivery system on occasion if you are sending un-filtered water.  Let me see if I can get you a link to a trick I developed for keeping my tower feeds from blocking.

Tower Flow

I was about to give up on them for backyard use until I discovered my idea.

 

The Zipgrow towers have an amazing extra bonus when it comes to commercial operation.  Unhook the tower and take the whole thing to market and let the customers pick their own fresh greens or herbs and sell by weight!!!!  Saves on packaging/processing costs and if it doesn't sell, take the tower back and hang it back into the system.

Nate has come up with some beautiful store displays and I'm sure others could be devised quite easily too.  the towers without any water circulation can keep quite well in a walk in cooler but if the store display has a little pump and water tank the crops will stay nice in the store on display for quite some time.

 

Here is a photo of my new 300 gallon system though not all the towers are planted out.

[Mitchell Lowell]

Greetings TC, thanks for the heads up on the business name where these towers can be had, and  more importantly a place where I can speak to someone first hand about the products. I already took a look at their site and will give them a call tomorrow. You have a good looking system; how many fish do you keep in your tank? I took a look at the link for your feed system; I had envisioned a (rough) similar concept with pvc pipe and plastic disc/plates. It is good to see the thought process was in the right direction.  Thanks again,Mitchell

TCLynx said:

Hi Mitchell,

      I don't know if the Skygardens towers are part of the Aquaponics operation or just part of their Hydroponics because they do both last I knew (though I haven't checked that info lately.)

 

I am using some of Nate's Zipgrow towers and they can take unfiltered water though you do have to check the delivery system on occasion if you are sending un-filtered water.  Let me see if I can get you a link to a trick I developed for keeping my tower feeds from blocking.

Tower Flow

I was about to give up on them for backyard use until I discovered my idea.

 

The Zipgrow towers have an amazing extra bonus when it comes to commercial operation.  Unhook the tower and take the whole thing to market and let the customers pick their own fresh greens or herbs and sell by weight!!!!  Saves on packaging/processing costs and if it doesn't sell, take the tower back and hang it back into the system.

Nate has come up with some beautiful store displays and I'm sure others could be devised quite easily too.  the towers without any water circulation can keep quite well in a walk in cooler but if the store display has a little pump and water tank the crops will stay nice in the store on display for quite some time.

 

Here is a photo of my new 300 gallon system though not all the towers are planted out.

[TCLynx]

I don't know if Skygardens (the place on the rooftop doing aquaponics in Winter Garden sells equipment.)  The towers they use I believe can be gotten from Aquatic Eco Systems though if you are going that way.

 

I like the zipgrow towers since they are filtration as well as plant space.  Those other towers are going to require some good filtration before sending the water to them.

[Mitchell Lowell]

Good morning TC, I was able to contact Sky Gardens this morning and spoke with a very nice gentleman by the name of Ed McMullen.  He provided with with an email address to the owner of Future Growing LLC, and told me that the commercial towers are custom made.  This is why I have not been able to locate them with the exception of the smaller areoponics models which Sky Gardens does sell, FYI.  I thank you, and the others that have put effort into getting this information for me.  As soon as I know more about the products and application I will post what I find out on the forum.

TCLynx said:

I don't know if Skygardens (the place on the rooftop doing aquaponics in Winter Garden sells equipment.)  The towers they use I believe can be gotten from Aquatic Eco Systems though if you are going that way.

 

I like the zipgrow towers since they are filtration as well as plant space.  Those other towers are going to require some good filtration before sending the water to them.