Fluid Farms founders Jackson McLeod (left) and Tyler Gaudet with Addy at the company’s new home in Dresden Saturday, May 9. Fluid Farms is Maine’s first commercial aquaponics operation. (J.W. Oliver photo)
Dresden is now home to the first commercial aquaponics operation in Maine. Fluid Farms is building a facility at 972 River Rd., formerly home to the wholesale nursery Sunshine Growers.
“Aquaponics is a low-impact food production system that combines recirculating aquaculture (raising fish in tanks) with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water), creating a symbiotic relationship,” according to the company.
Portland residents Tyler Gaudet and Jackson McLeod own Fluid Farms LLC, which plans to complete construction of a 150-by-20 greenhouse by early June and harvest its first crop at the site in late August. The fish tanks will occupy one end of the greenhouse.
The company will then begin to rebuild a 36,000-square-foot glass greenhouse on the property. Gaudet and McLeod plan to complete the first 10,000 square feet by spring 2016, when they hope to leave their full-time day jobs to focus on the business.
The business will eventually have up to six full-time employees, according to McLeod.
Gaudet, 30, and McLeod, 31, founded Fluid Farms LLC in 2012, according to the company’s application to the Dresden Planning Board.
Gaudet and McLeod are friends and former high school and college roommates. Gaudet works as a fisheries biologist and McLeod as a mechanical engineer.
A few years after college, McLeod moved to Portland for a job. His old friend, Gaudet, was living in the city and showed McLeod his hobby: a small-scale aquaponics operation in a carport-turned-greenhouse.
McLeod made some suggestions to improve the operation and a partnership began to develop. Fluid Farms expanded and moved to North Yarmouth in 2013.
The previous year, Gaudet and McLeod had heard about the mammoth glass greenhouse in Dresden. The partners spent about six months dismantling the greenhouse with the intent to rebuild it somewhere else – probably somewhere near Portland.
“We definitely did not think it was going to go back here,” McLeod said. “It wasn’t even an idea.”
Gaudet and McLeod soon realized how expensive it would be to develop the infrastructure necessary for such an extensive operation. The Dresden property already has everything in place – electricity, a foundation, a loading dock, a road, and wells.
The partners had formed a relationship with the property owner during their months dismantling the greenhouse, and she offered them the opportunity to lease the land.
Gaudet and McLeod have since dismantled their North Yarmouth facility. The glass greenhouse and the North Yarmouth hoop house are currently in storage on the Dresden property.
“We’re pumped to be in a country setting,” Gaudet said.
The partners relish the do-it-yourself nature of the project.
“We’re not buying brand new systems and paying other people to figure out how to do it,” McLeod said. “We’re doing everything.”
“Clearing the land, designing the system, building the system, and operating it,” Gaudet said. “It’s really exciting for us … recycling, making good, nutritious food; and hopefully creating a few jobs at the same time.”
The company employs the science of aquaponics to raise fish and varieties of lettuce, including butter crunch and oak leaf. The company focuses on lettuce because it needs lots of nitrogen and has a short life cycle – about seven weeks from planting to harvest.
The Fluid Farms model leverages “nature’s design” to increase productivity and decrease resource consumption, according to the application.
Fish exhale ammonia. The system filters out solid fish waste and water twice daily. The filter uses healthy bacteria to convert the ammonia to nitrogen, which is “the key building block for these leafy greens we’re growing,” Gaudet said. “They need high nitrogen.”
The water flows into the greenhouse, where the plants float on foam rafts with their roots in the water. The plants remove the nitrogen from the water and the water flows back into the fish tanks. The “closed-loop” system conserves water.
The majority of Fluid Farms’ revenue will come from produce sales. “At this point, the fish are kind of a bonus for us and they reduce our production costs because they’re a cheaper source of nutrients for the plants,” Gaudet said.
The system will house about 400 fish. Fluid Farms will harvest the fish when they reach 1½ to 2 pounds, which takes at least 12 to 14 months.
Fluid Farms raised white Nile tilapia at its North Yarmouth and Portland operations, but will switch to hybrid striped bass in Dresden.
Bass can withstand colder temperatures than tilapia. As Fluid Farms makes the leap to a year-round operation, the bass will reduce heating costs. Bass are also a “more marketable fish,” Gaudet said. “They’re pretty highly sought after.”
A hybrid striped bass is a cross between a female striped bass and a male white bass. The hybrid fish are “a little hardier and a little faster-growing” than either striped or white bass, Gaudet said.
As for the solid fish waste, Fluid Farms will initially use it to fertilize soil crops on the property. As the operation grows and produces more and more of the nutrient-rich waste, the company will probably sell it as fertilizer.
Fluid Farms will not use fungicides, herbicides, or pesticides. The company is pursuing organic certification from the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association.
Fluid Farms distributes its crops through Native Maine Produce in Westbrook. Most of the crops find their way to markets and restaurants in Portland and other southern Maine locations.
The company has received a warm reception from the community. The Dresden Planning Board approved the company’s application in a 7-0 vote May 5.
“I think it’s a great project,” Dresden Planning Board Chairman and state Rep. Jeff Pierce said.
“I’d just like to say that I think it’d be a great addition to Dresden,” planning board member and Eastern River Cattle Co. owner Linda Biden said. “It just fits right in with the rest of the town and it’d be a really good thing to have.”
For more information, like Fluid Farms Aquaponics on Facebook or visit http://fluidfarms.com.
