The farmers at Fyn River Farms near Loveland don’t have much acreage to speak of, and their hired hands don’t even have hands. That’s the way of this aquaponic operation: The field is inside a building, and most of the workers are goldfish who create the nutrients to feed the crops.
Business partners Jason Rider and Mike Bennett have converted a 2,400-square-foot shop building just east of Loveland into an indoor growing operation that they call a farm. The system was ready to go in mid-January, and they are harvesting basil leaves as big as their hands now.
Fyn River Farms’ prototype farm is an aquaponic operation, combining aquaculture — the growing of aquatic animals or plants — with hydroponics, the growing of crops in water.
The company’s name is a nod to both aspects: Fyn is pronounced like the fin of a fish, and River refers to the water running through.
They grow their crops in a small amount of peat moss inserted into holes in a four-level system of blue plastic pipes, almost 2 miles’ worth, filled with continuously running water. Grow lights hang over every section of pipe.
At the end of the building sits a 5,000-gallon tank housing goldfish and koi. The ammonia-rich droppings from the fish provide the nutrients for the plants — after the waste is run through a biofilter to produce nitrates. That water is pumped slowly through the pipes, nourishing the crop.
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