Vertica · Vertical Hydroponic Garden Calculator
Vertical hydroponic tower calculator and planner
A vertical hydroponic tower stacks plant sites up a central pipe and feeds them from a reservoir with a small submersible pump. Vertica, from Urban Root, works out how big that reservoir should be, how much the pump must move and how high it must lift. Then it plans the feeding, the crops, the light, the pump timer, the parts and the payback.
It runs in the browser at verticahydroponics.com and keeps your design in that browser. There is no account. Sizing is free, and the full plan costs $34.99 once.
Imperial or metric units. Parts and running costs are priced in US dollars.
What it plans
Your tower Free
Height, plant sites, levels, crop, indoors or outdoors, with a live cutaway drawing. Three starter packs (salad, herbs, tomatoes) fill in a working tower in one click.
Pump & reservoir Free
Reservoir gallons, target flow while the pump runs, lift in PSI, and a recommended pump read from its curve at your lift.
Wall layout Paid
Drag towers, LED bars and panels, a reservoir, doors and windows onto a wall view of an indoor room. One shape is free. The layout feeds pipe lengths and light distance to the other tabs.
Multiple towers Paid
Several towers on one pump and one reservoir, with the flow each tower really receives and a warning when they are out of balance.
Feeding plan Paid
EC and pH targets per crop stage, A and B nutrient doses for your reservoir, and ppm on the 500, 640 and 700 scales.
Crop plan Paid
26 crops (12 leafy, 9 herbs, 5 fruiting) with days to harvest, EC range, minimum DLI and a succession schedule.
Indoor lighting Paid
PPFD and DLI on the tower from six fixtures (four panels, two LED bars), a fixture count, and a verdict against each crop's floor and ceiling.
Pump schedule Paid
On and off minutes, cycles per hour, pump hours and kWh per day, water moved and reservoir turnover.
Shopping list and payback Paid
A parts list per tower at US list prices, monthly running cost at your power and water rates, the grocery value of the harvest, and months to pay back.
Outdoor seasons and Print plan Paid
Frost dates for USDA zones 3 to 11, a wind anchor weight, and one downloadable HTML Tower Plan with every figure.
How the pump sizing works
Reservoir = (0.75 gal × leafy sites + 1.5 gal × fruiting sites) × 1.2, rounded up.
Target flow = reservoir × 0.9 × 60 ÷ 3 GPH, because each 3-minute on-cycle moves 0.9 of the reservoir.
Lift = height × 0.4335 PSI per foot of water.
Vertica reads each pump's flow at your lift from its curve and picks the cheapest one that meets the target. The table holds five pumps. Each curve starts at the maker's free-flow figure and ends at its maximum head, and the points between are interpolated. Only the VivoSun 800 GPH lifts to 10 ft. The other four stop between 3.3 and 7.5 ft, so a tall tower has one choice in the table or none.
When no pump meets the target, Vertica names the strongest one and marks it undersized. When none of the five moves water at your lift, it recommends nothing. The shopping list then carries no pump line, and the energy and payback figures are not built on a pump that cannot run.
For several towers on one pump, the Multiple towers tab models the trunk and branch pipes with Hazen-Williams friction. It finds the point where the pump curve meets that pipe system and reports the flow at each tower from there.
How the light figure works
DLI is PPFD × hours of light × 0.0036. PPFD comes from a simple model that spreads the fixtures' light over a band around the tower. Bars are treated as line sources and panels as area sources. The panel size in that model is a nominal figure, not a datasheet value, so read panel results as an estimate. The leafy-crop DLI ceiling of 22 is researched. The herb and fruit ceilings are labelled provisional in the app.
Questions
How big should the reservoir be for a vertical hydroponic tower?
Vertica allows 0.75 gallons per leafy or herb plant and 1.5 gallons per fruiting plant, adds 20 % headspace and rounds up to the next gallon. A 28-site lettuce tower gets a 26-gallon reservoir.
What size pump does a tower need?
Two numbers decide it: the flow and the lift. The default timer runs 3 minutes on and 12 off, and each on-cycle moves 0.9 of the reservoir, so the 26-gallon example needs about 470 GPH while it runs. The lift is the tower height at 0.4335 PSI per foot of water. Vertica reads each pump's flow at that lift from its curve, not the free-flow figure on the box, and picks the cheapest pump that meets the target.
Which pumps does it know?
Five submersible pumps: VivoSun 210 GPH, Active Aqua AAPW400, EcoPlus Eco 633, Sicce Syncra Silent 1.5 and VivoSun 800 GPH. Each curve starts at the maker's free-flow figure and ends at its maximum head, with the points between interpolated. Only the VivoSun 800 lifts to 10 ft. The others stop between 3.3 and 7.5 ft. If none of the five moves water at your lift, Vertica says so and recommends nothing.
Can several towers share one pump?
Yes, on the paid Multiple towers tab. It models the trunk and branch pipes with Hazen-Williams friction, finds the point where the pump curve meets the pipe system, and shows the flow each tower actually gets. You can compare feeding all towers at once with feeding them one at a time.
Does it work for a DIY PVC tower or a store-bought kit?
Yes. Vertica works from the tower's height, plant sites, levels, crop and whether it stands indoors or outdoors, so a home-built PVC column and a bought kit go through the same maths. Vertica is an independent calculator and is not affiliated with any maker of tower systems.
What is free and what does the full plan cost?
Your tower and Pump & reservoir are free. Wall layout lets you place one shape before it asks for a licence. The rest costs $34.99 USD once through LemonSqueezy. The licence works on three devices and does not expire. There is no subscription and no account.
How accurate are the numbers?
They are planning estimates. Crop yields can differ by 30 % either way in a real garden. Light figures come from a simple model of a band of light around the tower, and the panel size that model uses for panel fixtures is a nominal figure, not a datasheet value. Check a new build with a flow test and a light meter.
Price
$34.99 once
Your tower and Pump & reservoir stay free. The licence unlocks every other tab and the Tower Plan download. Read the refund policy before you buy.