The Lexington Rainforest

My first real visit to Foodchain was a surprisingly cool experience. While it was a slight challenge just finding the entrance due to its location on the side of the West Sixth Brewing Company's building, with every guest having to walk directly through the seafood restaurant that shares the same walls with Foodchain, walking through the main door was like entering a totally different world. Right as I passed the threshold my glasses steamed up and sweat started beading up under my now unbearably hot sweatshirt, it was like I had walked into a tropical rain forest in the heart of central Kentucky. However, I was soon adjusted to the unseasonable heat and humidity and was able to start taking in the sights around me. Directly past the front door was a small 10 gallon fish tank with a few small fish swimming around in it which had a serious of hoses traveling from the tank to a small tray with several plants in it, a small, working model of the much larger set up we were about to be acquainted with. After all the new volunteers showed up, Anne, our volunteer organizer and guide, began showing us all around the main room and explaining how aquaponics worked as well as telling us the finer details of Foodchain's set up. Foodchain raises exclusively Tilapia in six large tanks of about 250 gallons a piece, holding 80 fish per tank.

The entire system including the tanks where the plants are kept in water holds around 7000 gallons of water, all constantly being circulated between the fish tanks, the holding tanks, and the plant tanks where many different kinds of leafy, green vegetables are grown. 

To me, one of the more interesting aspects of Foodchain's planting area was how they had solved an issue with lighting. When they first began, the plants grew lopsided or just sideways, growing towards the lights above them. To solve this, the entire lighting system was attached to a garage door opener that slowly and constantly moved the grow lights back and forth over the tops of every plant, ensuring they grew evenly and got comparable amounts of light to each other. All in all, getting to finally tour Foodchain was an incredibly interesting experience and I am now  even more excited to begin the actual volunteer work very soon of harvesting the grown plants and giving tours around the facility on Saturdays.