Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

For those of us who are to busy or lazy to build a bin I hope the price comes down a bit in the future.

I suspect they are much better at surviving than we can plan for. I also have a round worm bin and when they showed up I was a bit freaked. Like TC did the research and found them to be a good addition. When the season cooled, they "went away" though I suspect they will return in the spring.

My goal this year will be to build a large outdoor system and allow all the composters (worms, BSF) to live in a happy coexistence. I could get very creative and build out some kind of two step system with BSF getting first dibs and worms second, but will likely go for KISS. They may disappear next winter and the system slow, but I trust they will return come spring. Meanwhile, like DD says... freeze or dry for the cool season.

I'm getting to quite like the idea of tilted buckets around fish tank as BSF larva garbage cans/automatic fish feeders! Seems pretty simple for the busy/lazy.

Hang on I think I could have a method going in a matter of minutes and get a pic up before dark.

I found a couple of trash cans turned into compost bins on the side of the road here in central texas. Someone had drilled holes around the entire trash can and also cut some larger holes, covering them with with wire mesh. I started using these and had bsf turn up. i had no idea what they where at first and was a bit worried. I went and googled 'maggots in compost' and i ended up learning a bunch about black soldier flies.

I had bsf larva all over the place within 5 meters of the cans. Under ever rock, buckets, lumber... anything dark. The bottom of the can had a large hole cut with mesh over it. Im not sure if this thing was designed for bsf composting (i don't think so) but it sure seemed to work and the bsf had no problems escaping from it. Maybe have some sort of tub under the trash can.. shouldnt be to hard to rig something up. I started feeding them to my gold fish and they love them. The actually started to becoming kinda crazy at feeding time.... wait, I'll go take a picture of the can.








I think that if I just drilled the holes out a little larger it would make it even easier for the larva to migrate out. Also with holes up and down the entire thing it provides air and multiple places for the larva to escape. This bin was sitting in the full texas sun during the summer and the bsf seemed to love it.

?

the BSF larva don't seem to have much trouble getting out of my bin but the trick is figuring out how to direct their escape into a easy collection container.

very cheap, easy BSF Larva bin/fish auto feeder

Materials
Bucket
Bit of plastic
string or tape to hold plastic over bucket on one side
way to prop bucket over fish tank at an angle of hopefully between 30-40 degrees

Way to go TCL! Keep us posted as to how that works out! Make sure you have a way for the flies to get in.

put a bin under your bin? I'm going to get something like an oil change pan and just stick it under my trash can and see how that works.... hmmm I do need to figure out a way to drain the liquid they produce.

TCL - you might want to drill a hole in the bottom of your bucket for liquid to drain out. As the bsf chew everything up their enzymes liquify everything. Supposidly this liquid is great fertilizer. If you don't drain the liquid off I think it would collect in the bottom of your bucket and become putrid.

TC... that is great. Now if we could get duckweed to waddle out of another one we'd almost have an automated feeding system setup.

From what I understand most of the extra liquid (at least in worm bins) comes from the food being added and any moistening of the bedding that is done with water. Things do tend to get too wet in plastic bins if people are not careful about adding dry bedding to absorb the extra moisture.

I don't think I'll put any holes in this bucket right now. I put a handful of BSF larva I could find in my worm bin into this bucket (that too most of the time of setting this up.) They are pretty mature and I want to see if they will crawl out and fall into the pond/tank so I made things a bit wet in the bucket on purpose. The trash bag is really just a flap over the bucket to keep rain out and help make it a little darker in there. I don't think the flys would have any trouble getting in as they seem quite capable of finding their way around the screen lid on my worm bin.

I just gave the worm bin a good big feed today so hopefully I can get a big batch of BSF larva going to make testing this idea a bit easier!

Hum, I have a few odd old trash cans as well that might make a better larger scale method. I'll let you know how it goes!

I'm pretty keen to try my hand at making one of these.
fish food is hellish expensive and we usually have extra scrapes we can't give to the worms such as citrus,onion and meat.
are BSF a USA only fly or is there an aussie equal?
i didn't think fish would know the difference between pellets and live food, but the other day we fed our fish some compost worms and they went ape shit for them, the pond turned into a boiling mass of thrashing fish.

I think on one of the eariler pages of this thread it is mentioned that BSF have gotten all over the world though they did originate in the americas

guilty of thread skimming.
my only issue might be providing them with enough scraps i they aren't self regulating like the worms are.

peeked into the bucket a bit later to see if any BSF larva were crawling out because they are ready to pupate and I made the stuff in the bucket really wet. Well, yea they crawl out but not in the direction I was expecting. They are on the top! instead of crawling up the lower side of the bucket and falling into the pond.

whats the daytime temp there TCL? All my bsf dissappeared when winter came around. I've seen a few adults hanging around lately, but haven't seen any larva since the beginning of winter. I'm i central texas and we've had a few small freezes, I imagine your weather is a little milder.

About the liquid... I dunno, my bins where seeping liquid. So much that I even put the trash can on a chair without a seat and then a bucket underneath. I failed at capturing any decent amount of liquid, but not because it wasn't there. it just seeped down the chair instead of dripping in the bucket... ah well. I assume that bsf eat the same way flies do... which is spitting enzyme all over their food, basically digesting it on the outside of their body, then sucking it up. This was with a full 30 gallon trash can though and there where a lot of larva in there. But I think you're right, don't make any holes unless the need arises. Just somethign to think about.