Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Exactly, but I have eaten farmed Jades and it was delicious. My favourite out of trout, barra, silvers and jades- definately Jades.

Hi,

Think about what fish eat in a river system......anything!

I'd be OK with "acceptable".....boffins usually use bland language.

Stu.....I hope my experience with eating Jades matches yours.

I fed my fish so many BSF larvae that I created an ammonia spike....not fatal hopefully. At the moment, I have a drawer full of small plastic containers.....each half full of BSF larvae.

The more I read about them, the more enamoured I become.

Gary

Have you tried freezing and then dehydrating them? Then you could slice them into smaller bits. Quick buzz through a food processor?

Then it's easier to feed by weight.
It is mentioned in the document I posted regarding BSF for swine manure.
Dried at 70C I believe.

Hayden

Hi Hayden,

I haven't tried freezing them yet but I will. Given the amount that I harvested in my first attempt, it makes sense to freeze them for later use.

I can understand that a commercial operation would need such large quantities (and that they'd mix them with other ingredients) that it would be impractical to freeze them.

I'm wondering if, given the relatively small quantities that a backyard operation would use, why you'd need to dry them if you had space to freeze them. They'd almost certainly lose some of their nutritional value if they were dried.

What do you think?

Gary

Well, my thoughts are on how "gooey" they may be if they are cut and thaw in the water. Have you attempted to slice them at all?
Another option is to breed two varieties of different sizes so you can use small larvae for fingerlings and medium-large for adults. How inter-compatible they are is something I am not aware of.

I do agree that preserving nutritional content to be of high importance.

Hayden

I've pulled a few out of my system after they'd been trapped in my bio-filter line and, while they were soft, they hadn't become "gooey."

I agree that it would probably be useful to dry them if you were planning to put them through a food processor. Mind you, if I tried that around here, it would probably take a while for the bleeding to stop.

You could cut them in half (or even smaller) with a knife (frozen or dried) if you wanted to feed them to small fish.

I presume you are the one bleeding for using the wifes blender

Absolutely!

we found some larvae yesterday and fed them to the fish. I don't know that you need to worry about chopping them up for smaller fish They just got shredded by the babies

Tonight, I froze some BSF larvae.

They continue to astound me with their versatility. They wriggled around until they succumbed to the extreme cold. The result......Individually Quick Frozen (IQF to the food trade) fish food. Since they are loose, you can select the exact quantity you want......and feed them out straight out of the freezer

Once they had frozen, I fed some to the fish which ate them with the same relish as the fresh ones.

Have you tried them Gary - TV dinner. Yum.

They look a bit like almonds... just hold your nose!!!

Hi Tim,

They don't smell bad at all.......a very faint earthy odour.

Gary

but how do they taste Gary?

This morning, I decided to remove all of my BSF larvae from the plastic containers in which I'd stored them, with a view to freezing them for ongoing use.

When I put them in the plastic tubs, I mixed a bit of bran with them but I've found this makes a mess in the fish tank.....so I did a test to see if they'd walk up the ramp cleaning themselves as they went.....and drop off into a clean container.

I placed all of the larvae and the bran into one plastic tray. I found a piece of aluminium treadplate to use as a ramp and I placed another tray at the end of the ramp.