Utah winter greenhouse?

....when I read the question I thought it was more geared towards what happens if there is a catastrophic failure and all the SW drops. If that was the case, whatever land this is on would turn into a patch of desert. +1 on the underground structure needing a permit. This be earthquake territory from what I understand. 

Edited by icenine - September 04 2013 at 10:12pm

Update:
We had a wonderful experience back east. It was extremely informative to visit two coral farm greenhouses, Richard Perrin's Tropicorium and Than Thein's Tidal Gardens. In some ways, the differences between the two are like night and day, but yet they both utilize universal biological concepts. (Richard goes by the common nickname but the forum won't allow the letters  d, i, c and k to appear together )

We visited Tropicorium on a Wednesday morning. The entrance is a typical backyard/home based LFS displaying walls of tanks with fish for sale and dry goods on shelves. Further in, we entered the greenhouse:





There are two rooms, each with six of these gigantic vats full of water. Most of the vats have no coral frags, just LR and fish (that cannot be caught).
One vat holds several breeding shark pairs. Each year about 25 tank raised sharks are sold.
Coral are kept in substrate filled small plastic tubs:





Soft coral and Chalice are pretty much it. Richard told me that at one time, (I assume ~15 years ago) he was growing and selling all kinds of coral to public aquariums at [huge] profit. Then Bruce Carlson (also famous for the "Carlson Surge Device") of the Waikiki Aquarium (U of HI) visited to see how it was done, started his own coral farm and sold to public aquariums at lower prices. Needless to say, Richard does not care much for Bruce. (If I understood correctly, Richard has recently been awarded a $2 million NASA grant to collect and study coastal marine algae for biofuel so he doesn't need the money that Tropicorium [might] be making.)

Note: I built and used a Carlson Surge Device and also visited the Waikiki Aquarium several years ago, we should definitely thank Bruce for his contributions to the hobby (http://utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=40777).

During my visit to Tropicorium, co-operated by Richard's son, Ray, I saw a few Montipora but no other SPS. In fact, I believe it would be tough to grow SPS in these vats because water circulation is almost nonexistent as can be seen from the top scum visible in the above pics. The small tubs of substrate and coral sit on full size panels of corrugated fiberglass which extend the breadth and length of the coral vats separating each vat into an upper and lower channel. Water moves slowly across the coral topside and returns underneath. A group of 4 or 5 - 2" PVC air driven uplift tubes create what little there is of circulation. Here are two underneath views and a view of the end where the water circulates down to the underside:







The pic below is Richard Perrin in his greenhouse. Richard taught LeRoy Headlee of www.garf.org something of how to propagate coral. In turn, LeRoy came to the WMAS in the Spring of 1996 which begin our instruction regarding the ins and outs of coral propagation. LeRoy Headlee has since passed away. Did you know that Reef Janitors/the CUC is famous because of LeRoy Headlee?



Next: Tidal Gardens


Edited by Mark Peterson - September 27 2013 at 12:58pm

 


A "cave" made from ~2 ft. diameter metal pipe, set 8-10 feet deep surrounds the greenhouse to provide a constant earth temperature of 50-60 degrees for summer cooling and winter warming.

The three Coral Spas (free, old hot tubs) and a Trombe wall will absorb and radiate solar heat.

Top view:


Approximately 1500 gallons of water act as thermal storage surrounded by the amazing thermal storage of the dry earth. An insulation umbrella will moderate/even out the heat of summer and cold of winter and reduce the effect of freezing snowmelt and cooling rain.

We wish to voice our appreciation to the many who have already expressed, publicly and privately, their interest in helping see this project come to fruition.
Continued questions and comments are welcomed

Aloha,
Mark
808-345-1049 call/text anytime


Edited by Mark Peterson - September 27 2013 at 1:09pm

Did they mention this to you while you were at the Tropicorium?

http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/23448299/tropicorium-employees-charged-with-federal-wildlife-crimes

Jimbo wrote: Did they mention this to you while you were at the Tropicorium? http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/23448299/tropicorium-employees-charged-with-federal-wildlife-crimes

That may explain my Mark didn't see much in the way of corals there, if in fact his business was illegally harvesting coral. 

Mark Peterson wrote: Aloha y'all, The design for the coral greenhouse has significantly changed. Drawing revision number 8 is in the works. Following your advice I checked the Riverton City building codes. Any structure with a floor space 200 square feet or less needs no approval/inspection.

That is a very creative reading of that building code .. just sayin ...

Isn't it amazing how necessity is the mother of invention!

Again I say Aloha.

In a recent conversation, Corey emphasized to me that this coral greenhouse is a Proof of Concept (POC), built small scale to demonstrate that the idea works. Out of necessity, as mentioned in a previous post, our POC Subsurface Coral Greenhouse has been scaled down.

Some of the best contributors to this concept felt that the previous plans did not allow sufficient diffused light and yet allowed too much direct infrared radiation(heat). Revision 10 of the drawings are included below with improvements:
- Glazing is enlarged to an area approximately 8'x30' (includes the top half of the east end).
- Adjustable shutters allow full winter solar radiation yet allow only diffused summer radiation.

Cross section side view




Cross section top view



As always, suggestions are welcomed.

Mahalo,
Mark
808-345-1049

Plant greenhouses aren't uncommon at all.  I spend a lot of time at Cactus & Tropicals.

I can't see why anyone would.  I'd go with gas as well.  Maybe someone out there has gone passive that I just haven't seen yet.  Dessert Garden just closed for the year.... right?  I really like their greenhouses.  You may be able to just wonder around there.

Mark this is from an email I got from a Gentleman named Andrew: