We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kenneth Wingerter. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kenneth below.

Kenneth, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

In the Summer of 2016 I accepted a Product Development position at (then) Longmont-based AlgaeBarn LLC. At that time, AlgaeBarn was a rather small company that operated out of a commercial garage space producing planktonic microfeeds such as copepods and phytoplankton for the aquarium industry. While researching planktonic algae in my earliest days there, I stumbled upon some writings about a very interesting and potentially useful group of photosynthetic bacterioplankton called purple non-sulfur bacteria (PNSB). Though these organisms had already been used fairly widely on fish and shrimp farms since the 70s–and I had already been working with microfeed in hatcheries for 15 years–I surprisingly hadn’t yet heard of them. Further research into PNSB suggested not only that we could use these bacteria for numerous applications throughout the facility, but also that we could actually grow our own cultures in-house!

Though I drafted a formal proposal to put PNSB in production, the very small team at AlgaeBarn got overwhelmed with other projects as the company rapidly expanded. Indeed, just a few short years later, after swallowing up a couple of the surrounding commercial units, we had completely overgrown the original location. As AlgaeBarn relocated to its present location in Commerce City, I remained behind to found Hydrospace LLC. Two things informed this decision–(1) the voluminous published research demonstrating the effectiveness of these microbes as a natural live microfood and (2) the absolutely ridiculous difficulty I experienced in my attempt to obtain them for AlgaeBarn. Whereas I initially intended to culture PNSB as a proprietary part of the production process at AlgaeBarn, the principle aim of Hydrospace was to make them available to aquarists and aquaculturists worldwide.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

It’s hard to explain why I find aquatic life so fascinating–that’s just been a part of who I am since I was a kid. Since receiving a small fish tank for my 12th birthday in 1984, the longest I’ve gone without keeping some kind of aquarium was while living on a fishing boat. This obsession also inspired me to pursue an education in the biological sciences; I obtained a B.Sc in Biology from the University of Oregon as well as post-grad certification in Aquarium Science from Oregon Coast Community College (Aquarium Science Program). Both during and since my school years, most of my working hours have been spent in aquaculture facilities including marine ornamental fish hatcheries, food fish hatcheries and zebrafish laboratories.

Over the years, I’ve come to realize that the biggest stumbling block in nearly any type of aquaculture operation (or home aquarium, for that matter) is providing adequate amounts of natural, nutritious live foods generally, and plankton particularly. Considering the additional benefits of using these PNSB as a live food (bioremediation, probiotic effects, etc.), I’m just thrilled to be offering them to aquarists in the U.S., who otherwise would have no access to them.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

As a small family business, we’ve never had a huge marketing budget. You can almost say that we have NO marketing budget haha. Our expenditures for trade shows such as Reefstock and our patronage of hobby-based publications such as reefs.com and CORAL Magazine were really meant to support those entities as much as ourselves. Sure, lots of aquarists fall for slick YouTube promo videos and stuff like that, but in the end, the only way to grow within this tight-knit little community is to build solid relationships.

Thus far, we’ve more or less established our clientele the old-fashioned way: Through word of mouth. That’s pretty noteworthy, considering that the vast majority of people in my hobby, like me, were completely unaware of the ecological role PNSB play in natural reef microbiomes and marine food chains only a few years ago. I believe a few brave individuals tried our products after reading about them in our blog, reported good results in social media and aquarium forums, and then it just kind of progressed from there.

The aquarium hobby community has expressed a lot of appreciation for our accessibility and transparency, as we make it easy to contact us directly for any information about our products–including information that other such manufacturers tend to consider proprietary. Being as there are so many ‘snake oils’ in my industry, trust is everything. We aquarists like to put a name and face to the manufacturers we support. We certainly welcome clear, plausible claims about the products we use. But most importantly, we like to share our experiences with the stuff we use online. If you are competent and have integrity, you grow–if not, you die.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

Oh, yes indeed. We encountered a major dilemma just after releasing our flagship product, PNS ProBio. The original formula for ProBio was based on laboratory formulations. Generally, for those applications, the lab tech just needs to cultivate a high density of cells without regard for things like odor. Well, turns out that people who use products like this–at home in their aquariums–definitely do care about odors. I must admit that the original ProBio smelled quite awful. And our first customers seemed to agree. Not that the stench wasn’t brought up by at least a couple of our beta testers earlier on–I was just too stubborn to acknowledge their warnings.

But I certainly didn’t receive very many customer complaints before I determined to change the formula. The only thing that remained up in the air was whether or not I would recall the sold product immediately or just let that original, stinky, inventory ‘slip through.’ I brought the issue to my main connection at our first big retailer; in his estimation, the product worked great and the odor was not so important as it fairly quickly dissipated. He suggested that I not recall the product.

How very tempting it was to follow his advice! Not only had I already invested thousands of dollars into that first big stack of inventory, but I also had no idea how much time and money it would require to develop a more suitable formula. On the other hand, I had to consider the long-term negative impact that leaving those bottles on the market might have–there’s no bigger impression than the first impression. So, in the end, I opted for what seemed like a better long-term solution–I recalled and destroyed every single bottle. In the act of pouring hundreds of units down the toilet, bottle by stinky bottle, I resolved to never again release a single unit that I couldn’t stand behind completely.

Fortunately, we did eventually develop a much more nose-friendly formula. In so doing, we learned a lot more about the bacteria themselves and even ended up cutting the cost of production somewhat. Though it hit us hard at that critical, early stage in the life of the company, I cannot regret trusting my gut feelings about going through with the recall. I’m not so sure that I’d even be here talking about it right now had I decided to instead keep making stink bombs.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.hydrospace.store
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hydrospace_microbial_products
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hydrospace.store

Image Credits
All photos by Hydrospace LLC.