SolarBee Mixing Systems

Conrady Consultant Services is a nationwide professional water storage tank and pipeline inspection company specializing in ROV inspection, ROV water tank inspection, ROV pipeline inspection, other ROV tank inspection, underwater tank inspection, and drained tank inspection. We do both drained inspection and underwater inspection of all types and sizes of storage tanks except for petroleum and chemical products. We inspect inground, groundlevel, and elevated tanks constructed out of poured in place reinforced concrete, prestressed concrete, welded steel, riveted steel, bolted steel, glass lined bolted steel, fiberglass, and hydropneumatic tanks.

We can inspect these systems in your water tanks with our ROV to determine if this system is functioning correctly and mixing the water throughout your tank.

If you are not familiar with these systems, they use solar panels and batteries on the tank roof to power a brushless motor which floats on the water surface with an impeller that pulls water through a tube which goes to the tank bottom and pushes this colder newer water across the surface of the tank water to the sidewalls, whereby the water goes down near the tank sidewalls and across the tank bottom where it is again pulled up through the tube to be circulated again. This water flow also circulates the other water throughout the tank.

1.	Since the solar panels power the motor during the day, and the batteries power the motor at night, this is an active system that continuously circulates the tank water 24 hours a day and 7 days a week instead of a passive system whereby the water is only circulated when the pumps are filling the tank and the consumers are drawing water out.
2.	The newer water with a higher disinfectant residual is spread throughout the existing tank water thereby insuring that there is uniform distribution of the disinfectant. This results in a significant decrease of the possibility of byproduct formation.
3.	Because the water is continuously circulated, this reduces, or eliminates, water stratification, water stagnation, and the short circuiting of the newer fresh water being drawn from the tank instead of the older water that has been sitting in the tank.
4.	Because the water is continuously circulated, the need to occasionally cycle the tank water by delaying the pumping of new water into the tank until after the tank is a third or half empty to refresh the tank water is eliminated.
5.	The continuous water circulation will reduce, or even eliminate excessive ice buildup in tanks in colder winter climates.

The following photos were taken from an inspection we did of a SolarBee unit installed and functioning in a potable water storage tank.

Please pay special attention to the depth and temperature readings in the lower left of each photo. You will see that there is less than 1 degree difference in water temperature no matter where we were at in the tank. The water temperature was virtually the same at the water surface and at the tank bottom near the center of the tank, and at the water surface and at the tank bottom near the tank sidewalls, and at the water surface and tank bottom anywhere throughout the tank. This indicates that complete and total water mixing was being achieved by the SolarBee unit. What you can not see from the photos is our ROV being pushed backward away from the top unit by the water flow.


This is the SolarBee solar panels and digital control box mounted to the tank roof. The wire to the interior unit enters the tank through the center vent	This is the digital controller and battery which are inside a waterproof enclosure which is fastened to the solar panel support on the tank roof.	This is the SolarBee unit inside the tank above the water line. This unit is supported by the floats that you see on the sides of the photo.


This is what the impeller unit looks like from underwater. You can see the funnel shaped housing and the floats and the tube connection.	This is the top of the tube which extends down to the bottom.	This is where the tube curves as it reaches the bottom. You can also see the bar to the weights which hold the tube in place.


The tube ends with a box which sits on a circular plate and has openings on 3 sides from which the water is pulled into the tube.	We stirred up a little bit of silt so you can see that a significant amount of water is being pulled into the tube to be circulated throughout the tank.	The water distortion is from the water being pulled through the tube and pushed out the top by the impeller.


This is a photo of the sidewall just below the waterline. You can clearly see that the water circulation with the fresh disinfectant has cleaned the wall of dirt and biofilm.	Although there was about 1" of silt in the bottom, you can see from this photo that since the unit only pulled the silt that was very close to the box, and did not disturb the silt a few feet away, that the SolarBee will not stir the silt into your water and affect your water quality or turbidity.

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