Inside the vertical hydro tower: 33 sites, automated dosing
33 growing sites in a rain tower
A PVC rain tower with 33 growing sites, automated pH and EC dosing, and compliance-band analytics — this is Verdalio's most ambitious real setup. Here is how the vertical hydroponic tower is automated end to end.
Closed-loop dosing
A recirculating reservoir feeds the tower. Zigbee-connected pH and EC probes read the nutrient solution continuously; when a value drifts outside the recipe's soft band, the hub's dosing controller pulses the matching peristaltic pump — pH Down for a rising pH, nutrient stock for a falling EC — then waits for the reading to settle before dosing again. No overshoot, no manual titration.
Compliance bands, not just numbers
Analytics doesn't just plot pH over time — it shades the recipe's target band and shows how much of the grow stayed inside it. That compliance view is how you tell a healthy grow from one that quietly spent three days out of range.
Getting the water right first
Hydroponics is unforgiving about water chemistry. Before the first grow we measured the tap water's baseline EC and carbonate hardness — if your source water is hard, you fight it every single day. Read the Water & Chemistry primer before you mix a single batch of nutrients.
Commission before you trust it
A tower this size gets a full plain-water leak test for 24–48 hours, flow verification to every site, and a pump head-height check before nutrients ever go in. That is the commissioning checklist — mandatory, not optional, for any hydroponic build.