Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

TC dont they crawl towards the light ? your bucket is white/opaque so they are trying to get out through the walls maybe a different bucket ? or wrap more of the plastic around it to put the light where you want the larve to go

Cheers

TC, if giving the BSF enough food may be an issue, you could actually give them everything first and then give the BSF castings to the worm to finish decomposing. Some of the material attached earlier in this thread indicates that BSF do not completely consume all of the food and the remainder is good to give your worms.

To avoid over heating use some glue and put aluminum foil around the bucket to stop the light. The commercial bucket does have a drain with a cloth in it to prevent worm escape. Also, what about this.. *IF* you can use super glue or something like it you could glue a piece of 3/8 inch tubing in a spiral up the side of the bucket to a hole with more tubing stuck in it. Which would open to the fish tank.

Lets see if I can answer a few questions here.

Daytime temps here this time of year are usually in the 70s F. We can and do get freezes but we only really had one this winter so far and we have had some days up in the mid 80's already. I think some of my larva are in the bin because I sometimes let my worm compost get a little warm (as in a little hot compost happening but I always make sure there is an area of the bin not getting enough food so that the worms can escape to it if other areas get to hot for them.)

As to why the larva crawled to the ceiling, I think it was cause they could as the bucket was wet, they were trying to find a dry place to pupate. They are photophobic and will avoid the light same as worms. Only drawback to that I see is they will most likely be crawling out of the bucket at night and falling into the tank when the fish might not be paying attention.

And Guess what, They will crawl out of the bucket and fall into the tank. That is what those ones in the last picture must have done overnight as I now have several drown BSF larva in my tank/pond as there are not yet any fishes to eat them. The bucket of stuff is now going to go back to the worm bin until I have fish that will eat the larva as I don't really want to waste them needlessly.

After this successful experiment, I doubt I need to bother with any special ramps or tubing unless I can't put the bucket or barrel leaning on or over the tank. However, it might be nice to have a way to collect the larva and then feed during the day so there might still be a point to the collection tube.

I'm not too worried about running out of food for the worms unless we wind up using them as fish food, then we really need to get our worm population up. If we find we are needing more worm/BSF larva feed, we will start stopping by the produce stands to pick up the rotten stuff.

TLC, your temp is very close to mine then. I rounded up all the bsf larva i could find last fall/winter and fed them to my goldfish over the winter. Should have saved some... ah well, live, learn.

mrgrackletx,
Just get some slimy, stinky food scraps and start up a "worm bin" that the BSF can get into and hopefully you will have more soon!

How big are your gold fish to be able to eat a BSF larva? Or did you cut em up for them?

i'd like to see a double chambered setup when you open the lid to put scrapes in the inner chamber seals and you don't get any smells. that way you could have it inside with a collector bucket, you could just take the bucket out each day to feed the fish.

Problem with having something that seals and is indoors is that the adults are not very likely to get in to lay eggs so you get no BSF larva.

Worm bins can be fine indoors so long as they are kept relatively dry and not overfed. Covering the food with bedding (shredded cardboard/paper) helps keep things from getting stinky and absorbs extra moisture that could otherwise cause an anaerobic bin which would be stinky too.

The BSF larva seem to show up in my outdoor worm bin when I put more food in than would be acceptable for an indoor bin. They seem to like it warm, putrid, and a bit wetter than is necessary for the worms.

I had another idea for a BSF bin that I'm thinking of setting up. A bathtub with a ramp poured out of concrete up to the overflow drain. I'm going to take the bathtub and set it up at an angle so that when I pour concrete in it it will level out going from the bottom of the bathtub up to the overflow drain. I can drill a hole in the bottom for the liquid to drain off. I've poured very little concrete in my life and don't have any skill at it so I wanted the least tech way possible. The drawbacks I see are it's weight and size.

What about siliconing something like garden hose to the sides of the tub? Those grubs aren't very big or heavy.

I think I would try and find a lighter way to make a ramp than filling a quarter of the tub with concrete.

Perhaps try making a ramp bit with some foam board or hardie backer or something.

I get tons of these (BSF) every spring when I clean out my chicken coops they are about the only thing that can digest the wood shavings heavily laced with chook shit It kills worms I guess the urea content is too high.

Another no or low cost way of getting some free feed for the fish (or chooks in my case) is carry a 5 gallon bucket with a couple inches of dried leaves (oak leaves work best here) around in your car and harvest a bit of fresh road kill now and then. Drop it down in the leaves and make sure it is covered by them cap the bucket off till you get home. (Warning do not leave in your car on a hot day ) When you get home drill several large (1" or 12mm)holes around the bucket at least a couple inches above the road kill. Hang over your tank and let the flies do the rest you will get a pretty good assortment of maggots dropping in on your fish for about a week or two. Change out for another bucket as needed.

Old buckets can be trashed or washed out and reused.
This also works well for feeding chooks a bit of fresh food and for baiting a fishing hole at your local lake, pond or river.

Use a piece of 6" sewer pipe or other large plastic pipe or trough (rain gutter) from the bottom to your discharge point.

Robert

I thought about getting an appropriate size bucket, and using that spray on expanding foam stuff to build up the spiral ramps. It sticks to anything. Then coat it in fibreglass resin to seal it. When thay say 2 foot in the advert is that 2 foot high or diameter?

You would have to work out the height and diameter ratio to get the 40 degree spiral to end up where u want it. Where is Kudapucat when u need him?

Duckpond, think it is 30% ramp required - BSF can climb this incline but normal fly larvae can't.

Easy maths is @ 30% - for 10mm horizontal distance, the vertical rise needs to be 6.7mm (or multiples of those figures)