You want me to get that lift out of
your shot?
No, no, you're good
Like, do you want me to be speaking
to you, to talk to you?
Perfect, sounds good.
So...
So just to give you an idea, we'll
probably come back at some point
and find a place that's quiet,
controlled environment to do a
longer interview.
For sure. So this is just more of
like informative background to get
video of you showing off the place.
Don't feel like every little detail
of the history needs to be there.
Just kind of give us the idea of
what we're looking at here.
Sounds good, yeah.
Also with that, I'm happy if we, you
know, meet in Eau Claire or
something for that week, we can
figure that out.
But, awesome.
So, this is where
everything starts.
This is where our fish are.
Two 1,000 gallon tanks.
And when we first started
this, both me and my partner Trent
have a background in growing plants.
I was a
third generation greenhouse owner.
Trent was a dairy farmer and
we knew we wanted to start something
based off local food production
and we first
were kind of heard about
land-based fish farming
through places like Superior
Fresh,
Aqua Bounty, a couple bigger
salmon farms and then we were
interested in salmon farming but
found out that to start in salmon
farming you needed that economy of
scale, potentially millions of
dollars, which In our early 20s,
we weren't in a position to start
that. So then we just looked,
OK, what other fish are options?
How do you start it at a scale that
works for us?
So aquaponics, we saw some smaller
aquaponic facilities that we
figured, you know, that's a scale
that could work for us.
We didn't really want to use
tilapia. Tilapia are really common
in aquaponix there.
You know, Nile, Tilapia,
so from origins in Africa, which
we didn't really feel great about
bringing that into a pristine
environment in our local Wisconsin
waters.
So we wanted a Wisconsin fish.
First fish we had an idea of was
that yellow perch at a green bay
because that was the original
Wisconsin fish fry.
We started off raising 200 yellow
perch and they say you're not fish
farming until you kill
some fish.
I said I'm not going to kill any
fish.
Pretty quickly I killed 198
of those perch and had two really
nice perch left, but I figured, you
know, maybe we've got to try
something else.
The perch, you can raise them in
aquaculture, but they don't take
to the feed quite as well.
Their temperament is a little bit
jumpier. They like to jump out of
the tanks or get in
a tube with the system if they can.
Whereas the walleye are just a
little bit more chill.
They like a little bit of cloudy
water occasionally.
They don't like the lights being
right on them.
They do great at 70 degrees,
which is what you can feel it in our
building right now.
It's 40 degrees outside, 70 degrees
in here.
Great for our plants and that's
where fish are happiest at as
well.
And the whole thing with fish is
if you're wondering about how happy
are they?
How good are they doing?
It's all based off the feed.
If there's any sort of, if the
fish are stressed, they're
not going to eat.
So when they're happy,
that's when you see them lunching on
the food. That means they're doing
good, they are feeling good.
So how many do you have, and do you
just jump up on here?
Is that how you look at it, or?
Yeah so and it's pretty
it's pretty cloudy right now so you
really can't see too much.
But we have about a thousand
fish in here, a couple
hundred in here.
These ones are younger cohort
so these are a little bit under a
year. These guys are a bit under
two years old.
So these ones, average
fish is about 10
to 12 ounces and in here
we have some that are up
Two and a half pounds so
not quite as big as what we saw at
NADF yesterday not quite as big is
what's in the Menominee River but
really proud of getting them to that
size and getting it to you know
market size and once we
get it there and if you
compare that with how long it takes
in the wild it's about 20
percent so it's
a little over it's a year and
a half rather than five and a half
years to get them to the one pound
size. Once we
raise them and throughout their life
they're producing all of our
nutrients for our plants.
And once they're ready, once they
are that market size, we put them in
a purge system over here so
that is straight flow through system
of well water.
We'll give the fish a little bit of
epsom salt and that cleans them out
just like it would me and you and
then they're left with nothing in
their body.
They go for three or four days in
straight well water perfectly
clean filets.
We know what they've eaten their
entire lives.
It's this
pelleted feed.
So that's 55% protein.
So you keep the
growth rates up,
you keep them producing a bunch of
nutrients and they're just very
healthy fish because of that.
Canadian fish food, so the economy
is pretty interesting right now.
We're working on
a couple of companies to try to
get a walleye blend of
food that's domestically produced
because there is a non-proprietary
blend that's out there, that's been
done. Someone just needs to
take it on.
So we're kind of working on
connecting enough companies
where that order is enough scale for
those producers to produce it.
But once,
so the fish are
living in here and
their water is recirculating.
Clean water comes from our AST
filter and comes back after
being filtered.
And then you see a
small
valve over there we can go around
and see that but you open that valve
and that's what brings our
concentrated nutrients from our fish
into our plant loop and then we
have kind of three more rounds of
filtration so that by the time
it gets to our plants we have no
fish food solids in there it's
all soluble nutrients so
food safety wise that's really good
and just standard
operating procedures wise so we
don't get all clogged up in our
tubes and our towers and everything.
We have the same strain, so
these are all from the NADF
facility, so a Jifua
strain of walleye.
We have seen, we
started off raising a Green Bay
strain of Walleye.
It's going to be really interesting
to see. I'm hoping NADS
gets their funding and
does this study on.
Comparing the different strains of
walleye you know the agricultural
industry has been doing this for
hundreds of years picking the right
cow picking the wrong corn now
we're working on picking the right
walleye that really suits
uh suits uh raising like
this we also hope to eventually get
into stocking so the
strains end up being very important
because the DNR wants to keep
strain specific walleye
in specific bodies of
water so that If a walleye
strain has produced in there, they
figure they want to keep that strain
consistent.
New tank's going to go right over
here, so we got to make some
room.
My grandpa made this coat rack,
which we'll keep in here.
He'd be too disappointed if not, but
we'll make some room and
that'll get us
quite a bit more production
capability.
Our big fish are
our athletes.
They're the hardest to net.
So when I just blindly scoop in
there, I'm probably going to get
some smaller ones, but there's a
chance I get a big one.
They're going to splash a little
bit.
Here's a couple of ours.
So those are all just under what we
would harvest right now.
That's probably just getting to a
pound.
I know the spots they like to hang
out. I'll try to get them.
Get a big one.
So here would be a nice one that we
put in the first system right now.
Probably just under
two pounds, I would say, this guy
here. But you get that nice color.
They're kind of a consistent,
based off the strain.
That's kind of where you see the
strain differences in the color,
mostly.
But yeah, real, real happy with
the size,
belly, filet yield.
Well, about half of this fish
weight will be in filet.
This feed is trickling in 24
hours a day,
so while I was in there, they do
have their own personalities.
Like I said, your bigger ones are
more your athletes, you're kind of
your bully fish a little bit too.
They'll eat first, so the idea is
you have food trickling in there
all day, all day long,
so if bully fish get full,
and then the other fish get a chance
to eat. That way you're not dealing
with any nippin.
While I are young, you do have to
worry a little bit about
cannibalization.
So the constant feed
helps, and when they're really young
you might add a little bit of
plateful water to actually make
it a little more murky for them to
make it harder
Us are about that $800,
$900, so
all real similar per
square foot to a single-family home.
What we produce or what we
burn in electric and
heat and a big reason for that like
you mentioned that the insulation
helps out having the lights and
having the water.
Water in the building is the source
of you know insulation or ambient
heat that stays in here.
With the electricity is we
have our lights on light movers.
So that way it's
just kind of trying to mimic
the sun, you know, varying degrees
of intensity throughout the day.
Whereas if you just had one LED
light, that plant would want to grow
straight towards that light, long
and leggy, not much yield, not as
healthy of a plant where you get
varying degrees of density.
It grows out every which direction.
Plants are really largely
based off the nutrients that we get
from our fish we have to
add calcium and
potassium because the nitrification
process of our fish the pH
is always lowering so
we need to bring that up and yeah
we kind of get two birds stoned at
once because we give them the
those nutrients potassium and
calcium that's a good add to
aquaponic water anyway and
we're raising the pH.
The one nutrient that kind of has to
be added in and of itself,
that's not necessarily another
benefit is iron.
Just randomly the fish don't really
produce iron.
The plants need it.
But you see here,
so part of the reason why I say we
need to get, be very serious
about our filtration is just how
skinny our lines get here.
If we had any sort of solids in
there, it would get clogged up
really easily.
Each one of these has a float
valve in it.
There is about 20 gallons of water
in here.
One tower will use about
one gallon of water per day.
Full valve opens up.
We trickle water in.
And then there's some
pump in the bottom there, as
you see going on right here with our
baby rosemary.
Sends water to the top, trickles
down, and then it's off for about
40 minutes. So you get that really
nice flood and drain where the
plants actually get a little bit
thirsty.
Um and that's also
kind of representative of where
these plants came from.
A lot of the herbs are Mediterranean
in origin so they're used to a
sandier soil,
they get heavy rain, get
dried out for a while and
so we're kind of replicating that
here. So we're able to grow you see
some rosemary up
here on this tower, sage,
thyme over here, so
all those stickier
more woody crops we're able
to grow on the towers and
then kind of a wide variety
beyond that too.
Tomatoes were able to do and the
fish really produced mostly nitrate
so that's nitrate
is what you need for vegetative
crops so that's your before fruiting
or flowering or you know if it's a
crop that doesn't fruit or flower so
all your herbs all your salad is
in that So, um.
Our fish water has actually produced
enough nutrients where we can
produce pretty nice and great
tasting tomatoes too.
Just cherry tomatoes because we need
to support them on the towers,
but yeah, we've
been pretty happy with the taste
anyway.
And then you see kind of
over here on the other side,
that's our deep water culture unit
and that's kind of
more common to use for
aquaponics, hydroponics, just that
trough of water.
It's a little bit simpler of the
system and can work for a lot of
different crops. We have our mint in
there. It does amazing.
But for us, the towers allowed
for a little more food
safety, more variety,
and just a little a bit more control
with what we could do.
And our towers
keep the water more
separate from the actual plant
because it is fish water at the
end of the day.
Keeping it separate no contact there
just very food safe is
the name of the game for us.
But we are you know just like our
fish water is being recirculated,
our plant water is being
reciculated, our air is moving
around all indoor and
the reuse of everything the
main lesson we've learned is just
keeping everything super clean
disinfected both fish and
plants because you
just need biological life to grow
you can't get You can't let...
Other bad biology get in
the way of that.
Every indoor grower is going to deal
with bugs or disease
or mildew of some kind
so it's just finding ways to
stay ahead of that and mostly
it's keeping clean keeping
everything super you know keeping
these fans on us.
It feels good for us and just like
us when the plants
get a little bit they can breathe a
lot better.
I'm assuming at this point,
the fish are supporting the plants?
Is one day the goal to have them
be equal in terms of income
supporting each other?
Yeah, we
have high hopes to
expand the fish sometime,
sometime soon in the next couple of
years.
And that probably looks mostly
like a focus on expansion in the
wall and keeping kind of
still reaching the capacity here.
So eventually we will have more
nutrients than we
are able to use so it could
mean something else.
Bottling up that nutrients giving
it to a community garden or
something like that Number of
different ways you could handle it
with there's a cornfield right out
right out our door, too but
We wouldn't be the first to
do it for sure I
did I I don't know
if I told you in that
Studying of perch at
first So we
talked to a Madison professor named
Terry Barry great
name.
He was an aquaculture professor, I
believe an aqua culture professor,
maybe just a biology professor, but
he said he had a similar system to
ours recirculating,
but in one tank he had northern pike
and another tank he had yellow
perch. He found out that
when the northern pike had some sort
of predation, the yellow perch
responded by doubling their growth
rates.
It's just like incredible
you know when you're in the way of
uh you need to this fish to grow as
fast as possible to make make your
margins whatever i do i said
do while i do that
unfortunately they don't
The canfish do that.
It's a chemical that's released when
one of them is eaten.
That tells the others around it,
grow faster, get bigger, I just got
eaten. Some sort of pheromone or
something. Something that's been
released into the water.
That's why a lot of fishermen will
say, oh, a lake can get stunted.
Especially the bluegills will never
grow fast to a certain size.
You've got to introduce a bigger
predator to eat them, to get them to
grow.
The right idea, but the wrong
methodology of what actually is
happening. It is the same, you need
the predation for them to tell each
other to grow bigger.
Without the predator present, they
simply reach a size
that they're comfortable with, and
then they don't grow bigger
they need that pressure, yeah,
that drive.
And it's so, yeah I figured
it had to be something like that
because he said whether the pike
was in the same tank or
not, it wasn't like the perch had,
the perch didn't have to see it, you
know.
We had walleye or enough
of an apex predator where they're
not necessarily gonna do that,
but
just cool stuff that you
learn along the way.
Especially learning like us, you end
up, the, uh,
you know.
YouTube, Google Scholar,
talking to these research facilities
instead of getting more of a
formal education,
you end up with a lot more adjacent
things that you learn.
For better or for worse,
it's cool to have a mix though.
And you see kind of here we
have some power washing going on,
dissembling towers.
We just got done with the harvest
today.
So you see over here, those
are a couple of Romaine towers that
the further ones we might be
harvesting from for our local
customers tomorrow.
The other ones are just harvested
from. We need to unload those,
soak them, power wash them,
reassemble them so they're all
perfectly clean, very labor
intensive, butt.
That's how we grow our good crops.
So when you see here, we have some
micro greens, broccoli micros,
cilantro,
romaine, basil.
Someday I'd like to figure out
strawberries, but it hasn't
happened yet.
You need to clean them up as you go
almost after every harvest.
Chives are one thing, chives
and parsley both.
You'll see the towers get a little
baked on, but the plants
do really well.
They're able to keep cutting and
coming again.
For whatever reason, they're really
able to reproduce really well
and stay really great products
for a long time in the tower.
Some more basil over here.
We have our dill section here.
Another one that you can cut and
come again quite a few times.
Do you guys want to go over and
see kind of the germination
area?
Yeah, I mean, you just want to get
some...
Yeah.
No, the...
I'm going to edit for the same
ideas along the way.
And the...
Motivation and influence on like
little kids and like how
many engineers and scientists
that we have because of the moon
landing there and same thing
like a lot of these people that are
interested in science.
But a huge, huge, debatable
topic.
It's really interesting to debate.
You know, there's the Tasmanian
tiger that they say
is really necessary to be
back, because Tasmania is one of
the species.
Is it a dire wolf, or is it
just a wolf with some new traits,
or, you know, whatever?
Part, we'll
probably, we've been doing it about
every two weeks.
Right out of the circulating system
and out of purge system.
Mind you, only four people,
but no one can tell the difference.
So, kind of interesting that way
where salmon, it's
quite a big deal to get the
purge right.
And it could even be three, four
weeks sometimes, which they even
started to come down to Menominee on
Wednesdays.
No, we don't have a facility.
You need your, you know,
stainless steel and all that
stuff.
But we do have a
licensed kitchen now back
here.
So we're able to do,
we need the retail food licenses to
be able to sell them.
So we need that.
But then we're also able to.
Utilize more plant products to
put them into jars, so the pest
goes away, it's too much to eat.
Filling you in on this yesterday
too, then the same way with the
plants we're trying to use all of
it.
Yep, yeah, we do two filet
packs, and it is
new, you know, you look online,
while I direct frozen.