Black Soldier Flies

[nclackso]

Hi All,
I am new to aquaponics, and am very keen to get into it. I currently manage a very large NFT hydroponics farm and am interested in converting my waste into fish food. I currently produce in excess of 5 tonnes of scrap (leaf, roots and peat moss) every week. This is collected and composted in large piles.
I am thinking of using black soldier flies to speed up the process and hopefully produce some fish food. However, i do not know much about BSF.
Where can i get some from?
How do i harvest them? i have heard that they self harvest, but this seems to be tricky.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks Nclackso

[Jonty]

nclackso,

Download the free magazine, no 3 in the Pratical Aquaponics from this site. It has an interesting article on BSF.

Regards
Jonty

[Hamish]

Hi All,
I am new to aquaponics, and am very keen to get into it. I currently manage a very large NFT hydroponics farm and am interested in converting my waste into fish food. I currently produce in excess of 5 tonnes of scrap (leaf, roots and peat moss) every week. This is collected and composted in large piles.
I am thinking of using black soldier flies to speed up the process and hopefully produce some fish food. However, i do not know much about BSF.
Where can i get some from?
How do i harvest them? i have heard that they self harvest, but this seems to be tricky.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks Nclackso

Id go with a commercial version of the biopod - they self harvest as part of the design. They are tidy and work well. I use the domestic version and it puts out half a cup of grubs each day and it is winter so will seed up come summer.

Worth the investment for trouble free operation in my opinion. However even the large version will only consume 9.5kg per day http://www.thebiopod.com/pages/pages/protapod.html

There is a contact for these in Brisbane. I purchased mine off him and he was god to deal with. PM me if you are interested and I can dig up his contact details if you want them.

[billsymo]

For anyone who is interested. I have read somewhere that people have trouble breeding and harvesting Blowlfy Larvae. Blowfly larvae (maggots, Gents) , or whatever you like to call them are not hard to breed, THEY DO SELF HARVEST, the same as Black Soldierfly Larvae, however there is a trick to it. If there is enough interest, I may post it here, and my method does not produce a large amout of smell. I breed Gents for two reasons, one (1) they are excellent Garfish and Tommy Ruff Bait, and (2) they are excellent and cheap feed for large goldfish.
I breed large goldfish. My set-up is similar to an aquaponics set up however I do not use the Growbeds, as such, to grow vegetables. My growbeds are used primarily as filters and a buffer for my two and a half thousand Litre tanks. I am currently considering installing growbeds for growing vegetables, however, I spend a lot of time travelling and looking after a garden would probably take up too much of my time. I currently have four silver perch in a seperate tank, as a test, but I find that there growth rate is very slow. Although I was told that they would take feed pellets, they don't, but they do love maggots and garden worms.

[GaryD]

Hi,

I've had several attempts at growing blowfly larvae but they were generally unsatisfying to say the least......so I'd be interested in what you have to say about doing it.

Silver perch will definitely eat pellets but I imagine that if yours have got used to maggots and worms they are probably exercising a preference.

GaryD

[Hamish]

From here:

http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/nature_con.../?format=print

Maggots

One of the easiest ways to breed maggots is to pierce 5mm holes in the lid of a tin of pet food and put it outside. After at least five days, remove the lid, tip it into a bucket of water and strain it through fly wire to get the maggots. Rinse the maggots in running water for 15 minutes to release the contents of their intestine. This will prevent bacteria being passed on to your animal. You can store maggots in a jar of flour in the freezer until you are ready to use them.

[billsymo]

From here:

http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/nature_con.../?format=print

Maggots

One of the easiest ways to breed maggots is to pierce 5mm holes in the lid of a tin of pet food and put it outside. After at least five days, remove the lid, tip it into a bucket of water and strain it through fly wire to get the maggots. Rinse the maggots in running water for 15 minutes to release the contents of their intestine. This will prevent bacteria being passed on to your animal. You can store maggots in a jar of flour in the freezer until you are ready to use them.

When blowfly maggots migrate to pupate, they will purge all digested food before pupating. This is the same as what happens when Soldier fly larvae pupate. At this stage blowfly maggots carry no harmful bacteria and any that are present are probably more beneficial than harmful.

[billsymo]

Hi,

I've had several attempts at growing blowfly larvae but they were generally unsatisfying to say the least......so I'd be interested in what you have to say about doing it.

Silver perch will definitely eat pellets but I imagine that if yours have got used to maggots and worms they are probably exercising a preference.

GaryD

Hi Gary, I am presently putting together a post on breeding blowfly maggots which I will post in the forums under fish feed, hopefully within the next few days.

[billsymo]

nclackso,

Download the free magazine, no 3 in the Pratical Aquaponics from this site. It has an interesting article on BSF.

Regards
Jonty

Hi Jonty, unfortunately where I live (SA) , BSF only breedv in summer, I get plenty out of my compost bin then. Blowflies breed all year round although in winter they are very slow, given the right conditions they seem to turn up anytime. Bill
.

[Hamish]

I am always keen on new sources of free food for the fish so I am keen to know how you go about breeding them.

I did hear of someone hanging road kill over the tank in a plastic garbage bag with a hole in it. The larvae dropped into the tank. Nasty