Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I knew you had a secret club

Can I join the club?

BRAGGERS

Waiting on mine to get going. Had it rolling late last year, but didn't start before mid-July. The bait is out, but no visible bites... yet....

Still debating the exit/ramp strategy for my pods, but no need to solve just yet.

CB

CB. dont worry about the ramps . If you have them in your area just be happy to have them around . Once they are about you will have the flies and they will multiply. Mine are going crazy and I wouldnt even think about feeding them to fish

Absolutely - welcome !!!!


Happy to send you up some more Helen - can get onto it this week ! Will advise when sent.

Thanks Chilli..that would be awesome

Not a problem - just make an anonymous phone call about a marijuana plantation out at Pannawonica so there's no boys in blue around to make a raid on the mail truck !

Well the Nockypod worked and I harvested BSF and thanks to chillidude and faye we have BSF in Narrogin, but the pod is now officially sacked, went away for the weekend and came back today, lifted lid to check food and out flew a heap of green flies, pod actually smells bad as well, put some out of date mince from freezer in on Friday and could have caused the problem, is a mix of maggots in pod and don't want the green flies in plague proportions, after the experiment I think BSF is a good thing if that's all you get, the green flies are a bad thing for sheep so not good breeding them in the country.
I personally think it is much easier to buy the pellets, BSF eat heaps and I get better production from my scraps by feeding to the chooks and worms, and agree with EB's comments written in the http://backyardfarming.com.au/phpbbb/ forum, Sorry faye but if like chillidude and others that have harvested heaps and can keep the feed up then it is great.
Jessy don't know how you will go after receiving your supply, I will suggest you will get some BSF harvested but I think the predominant fly will win out, in you're case Blowies and in my case the green flies and it is to hard to separate the goodies from the baddies, this is my opinion only after 2 years of trying to get just BSF

Yep Nocky, the flies would have loved the mince. My BSFL are in my Gedeye compost bin. I put flywire over the top of it to stop the blowies getting in. The lid just sits slightly ontop to stop rain getting in but if it is a fine day i leave it off so it doesnt get to much condensation in it. The BSF will lay their eggs ontop of the fly wire and will be small enough to drop into the bin without flies getting in. The BSF get in under the handles of the lid.
This works for me but they dont self harvest. You just have to scoop them out yourself. Dont give up on them because they will keep the blowies away which is good for preventing blown livestock.

Looks pretty cool. But unfortunately for those of us living in colder climates, any form or shape of a biopod is pretty much useless for BSF. However I have been running a test the past few months with winter well and truly here. I cleaned out the pod and placed a road kill possum in the bucket. 2weeks later without the trace of smell at all, a daily very large handful of blowie and housefly maggots were being produced.

Now, every morning 2-3 handfuls are being thrown in the tank and fish growth rates are taking off. Maggots have quite a good protien and fat profile so shouldn't be overlooked as just a pesky 2nd rate nuisance especially if BSF are a bit slow to breed. Or in our case, the cold weather breeds sweet f all...

6 weeks later the possum was just skin, fur, and bone. A top up was required so in went a small wallaby found on the side of the road recently struck down. In the collection bucket is a good layer of plain oats that helps clean the maggots inside and out before they head into the tank

If the collection bucket is emptied regularly, there is no increase whatsoever in the number of flies hanging around. The pod is only about 15m from our back door and as said hardly any smell

Once the weather warms up again in a few months that might change somewhat tho

Because of the weather here I think is the reason for so few harvested, we have let hundreds of BSF Maggots loose down here so see if they adapt, may try again in a year or so

Last knight I noticed a good number of BSF in my worm bed. I was very happy about it. Today I got home from work and went out to check and I think they all got cooked. 108 deg in fresno today. Im hoping some of them dug down to the cooler dirt and lived.

yep they lived and now my pod is rolling with bsf. The ladder works ok but does not appear to have a high recovery rate.

Absolutely right Tony - I reckon a mixture of the two is a big win. Certainly BSF are not the be all and end all as you need fish of a certain size to be able to eat something that is approaching the size of a 9mm pellet.

For everything else, maggots are a great feed.