Water restoration for hydroponic and CEA growers
A closed-loop CEA or vertical farm recirculates hard and runs warm under lights, which is exactly what pulls dissolved oxygen out of the nutrient solution. When the solution goes anaerobic it sours, uptake stops, and root rot follows, all at once. The oxygen in the loop is the number that decides whether it stays productive.
The problems we see on your water
What Alchemal installs and takes responsibility for
Controlled-environment agriculture (CEA, growing crops indoors under managed light, temperature, and irrigation) leans hard on a recirculating nutrient solution, and the tighter and more productive the loop, the sooner it runs short of oxygen. In hydroponics (growing with the roots in water or an inert medium rather than soil) the roots sit in that solution directly, so the dissolved oxygen (the oxygen dissolved in the water) around them is the number that decides their health. A warm, high-density loop draws it down until the solution turns anaerobic and sours, the root zone (the water and medium around the roots) stops taking up water and nutrients, and the water molds behind root rot move in.
Nanobubble oxygenation holds dissolved oxygen through the whole loop, the reservoir, the root zone, and the return, adding nothing else. We baseline the oxygen through the loop before sizing anything, install the system matched to it, and Stewardship logs the oxygen alongside the pH and EC (electrical conductivity, the nutrient-strength reading) you already track, against a baseline taken before any commitment. Where decaying matter or missing filtration is the real source, the assessment says so. The N-Series unit is matched to the site, with a published target price band, and what we measure and how is published.
Proof from CEA growers
The first installations for this audience are being instrumented now, and their case files publish when the record is worth reading. The methodology is already public: what we record, how we calibrate, and how we report what didn't move.
From your first note to the assessment
- You describe the water. A specialist reads it, replies with a plain answer, and says whether an assessment makes sense.
- Your water goes on the schedule. The first assessments and installations are being scheduled now; requests are answered in the order they arrive.
- The assessment puts a baseline on paper: dissolved oxygen top to bottom, clarity, the condition of the sediment, and a plan with a prediction attached. If oxygenation isn't the right fix, the report says so.
Questions CEA growers ask
Where does the system tie into a closed loop?
Usually at the reservoir or the return, where it can hold oxygen through the whole loop rather than at one point. The assessment reads dissolved oxygen at the reservoir, the root zone, and the return, so the reserve is placed where the loop runs shortest.
How is this different from the air pump we run now?
An air pump surrenders most of its oxygen at the surface, and in a deep or fast loop much of it never reaches the root zone. The case is transfer efficiency: nanobubbles stay suspended and release oxygen through the water, so more of what you pay for reaches the roots, measured against your baseline.
Does this replace our cleaning and dosing routine?
No. Holding oxygen keeps the solution from running anaerobic; it is not sterilization or nutrient dosing. Where a loop needs cleaning, cooling, or filtration, the assessment names that work, and oxygen is the prevention kept up alongside it.
Start with a conversation.
Describe the water and a specialist replies with a plain answer, before any commitment. Your water, your numbers.