Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Alternative fish food.

Just thinking ... Maybe a good idea to have a list of possible alternatives that could be discussed on speparate threads in the future.

A list of possibilities here, including stuff that is zero cost or very cheap as compared to flake etc.. Some we have on various discussion threads already such as Azolla and Duckweed.

Fruitfly (drosophilla melanogaster) are easy to catch using a coke bottle trap.

Composting worms. (Tigers and night crawlers).

Also there is a maggot (got no idea of its name) that could be caught, buy making a chook poop slurry .. in a dustbin. These maggots have a sort of snorkel appuratus for breathing so that they can be grown in water and are easy to catch.

Microworms (nematodes)

Brineshrimp

All sorts of veggies, boiled pumpkin, silverbeet, spuds etc. etc would add to the variety of foods available.

half rotted compost from the worm bin for my yabbys.

Rabbit poop, sheep manure.

Lupins.

Pig food.

Black soldier fly larvae (self-harvesting, compost animal products not just plant material, keep houseflies away, great protein source)

http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/waste_mgt/smit ... ierfly.pdf

http://nespal.cpes.peachnet.edu/sustain/fly2.asp

I plan to raise some someday from the waste food from the local elementary school's lunches. My stepson accidentally threw away his retainer with his lunch tray a few years ago, and we had to go dumpster diving to get it. An elementary school's dumpster is full of uneaten food (hamburgers with one bite taken out of them, lots of non-empty milk cartons, vegetables, etc). There is also an applesauce-making factory and a lot of fruit orchards in our area and I could probably use the sludge they don't want.

I could see them dropping into a solar dehydrator, to be used for the fish as needed. Or, they can just drop into the fish pond directly!

You can also polyculture them with conventional red worms underneath the BSF layer - as the BSF larvae can't digest all the plant materials and this makes a perfect bed for the red worms.

Excellent ...

In Australia we must have a similar native fly to this one. (Fly occupying a similar niche!)

I just worked out , the visiting bandicoot I am feeding (Bertie) has a similar "niche" to the hedgehog visitor I fed in the UK .. (Harry)

The echidna although similar to the hedgehog in apearance has a completely different lifestyle!

Nature is amazin'.

what about boiled zucini, veg loving fist will eat that

not an option in QLD...
Boiled potato also works for redclaw

And don't forget flies.... You can set up a floating fly trap with suspended bait (that miught also get fly blown ) to draw them in, then they drown on the water surface, and get gobbled.

yeah, DIE fly!

BSFs are native to Australia:

http://www.geocities.com/brisbane_flies ... MYIDAE.htm

Nice one Dave.. They sound ideal for an aquaponic system, and now I see the pics, I know exactly what they are, I've seen them many times before but just never known what they are. It would be interesting to know waht sort of breeding rates you can get out of them...

I thought those buggers were wasps!

This guy is smitten by them:

http://www.esrla.com/pdf/Brazil.pdf

I skimmed the 107 pages, the dude has done some serious research. It a pitty that like most good out side the square thinking, it will be dismissed

Hee Hee

When I was a kid (eager to make a buck!)

We had a very small local lake ... that we used to visit ...

The Anglers there used to fish for Tench and Perch (I think we call it redfin Perch here .. anyway .. stripy medium size lake fish with fighting spirit for a small fish ...

anyway ..

We used maggots and worms ..

If you could provide wasp grubs (maggots) to Anglers ... you could get 5 shillings per grub! (LOT of money in those days!)

We would go to the pharmacy and buy smoke bombs used to eradicate moles from your lawn. Then we would find the openings for a wasp nest (underground), We would block all entrys and then add a smoke bomb ...

Then (with gloves) .. harvest the wasp maggots from the cells.

We made a fortune!

So ... European wasps... Smoke them out, dig them up and destroy ...

Take my word for it .. they are something we don't need in Aus!

They eat anything ... in the summer the cake shops are crawling with them in UK ... they eat eat as well as sweet things, they get in your beer or Coke can and sting you in the throat ...

erradicate ... and feed the devils to the fish !

We don't need them here!

I think these may be the flies that you sometimes get in worm farms or compost. U know the ones that have haggots which have a thick dark skin. Does anybody know what I mean. I used to try like hell to keep them out, but they may be worth breeding.

AA mentionned aqua worms a bit ago. I am not sure what these are, but I have noticed that in my ponds a have quite a lot of little worms on the bottom. They are not much bigger than a mozzie wriggler, and probably thinner. The colouring and shape etc is the same as a compost worm. I first noticed them when I took some duckweed out a couple of weeks ago to post to Murray. Disn't see them when I took it out, but noticed them on the plastic of the zippy bag the next day. They must therefore live in the duckweed as well as on the bottom, as I had just skimmed it off the top.

Anyone know what these are?