Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Has anyone in Southern Australia, or similar climates, been able to rear BSF?
I setup an elaborate environment for them in Feb 2008 and have been regularly adding lots of nice juicy veggie scraps, keeping it 'not too wet' & 'not too dry', but all I attract is vinegar flies.
Monya has suggested it may be a bit cold for them, but other research suggests it should be OK.
Our summer temps are 15-35 C and winter around 8-15 C.
Any comments from BSF experts would be most welcome.

hey peterall, not sure if there are any BSF in adelaide. maybe ring PIRSA to see if they are illegal here?

I'm pretty sure I had them growing in my bucket of fish pellets over summer. I had the pellets in a bucket with a hole in the lid. Whenever I opened the lid and picked up the scoop that was sitting on top of the pellets there would be a group of lavae sitting there. They all seem to have gone now that the cold weather has arrived. I note that it was a dry environment as well.

Has anyone ever confirmed if there are BSF in Adelaide?

Good question - I am hoping to build a Nockypod (or similar) when I get back home if I can be sure of their existence.

OK,

I built a home made contraption (using rectangular plastic tub, and flat plastic to make path to hole for BSL larvae - pics to come soonish) and I put a recent suicide chicken in there (he jumped in the pool on a cold evening and did not survive the next day) along with some banana skins and other scraps.

I saw maggots in there 2 days ago, and today i checked the collection chamber and there were about 50 white maggot things in there along with several shiny black beetle of sorts about 3mm across. these same beetles are in the compost, and the tub is filled with wrigglers.

it is probably too dry in there for them so they are not all migrating but the chooks loved what I gave em.

I dont know if they are BSF but they sure act like em.

I am in one tree hill SA

I guess they could be regular house/blow fly maggots.
Won't worry the chooks though !

I dunno, they are not huge, however, I did notice more of a longish fly hanging around my vegie garden and this BSF harvester - My gut says BSF are what they are.

The smell is even different - the compost does not *STINK* but has a rather pleasant (for composting scraps) odour.

I will get some photos for you guys and let u be the judge.

I just googled what it looks like, and this is the same shape as my flies. the wings on ours are more shiny tho. (they kinda glisten)

sounds promising.....

Can you give us a pic of the maggots?

as soon as I get my camera working - dropped it and now it wont start

Having lived in Adelaide for around 29 years, I would have thought spring to autumn would be ok (depending on the area you live. i.e. Stirling, Bridgewater, etc would be colder for longer).
But I can tell you here in TAS I am about to post my biopod for sale as I cannot get a colony growing no matter how much I try.
Interestingly, the BSF larvae will hang out in the worm farm and compost bin right next to the biopod, but in general, nothing much occurs.
I've tried full sun, part sun, and in the glass house. I've even attempted to 'seed' the biopod with larvae and some flies. But try as I might, absolute failure..
After having the biopod for over 2 years now, I really do think, that harvesting BSF are only suited to year round warmer climates such as QLD, NT and WA.

Does Southern Australia include Perth ?

As you can see on the Nockypod thread, I'm having reasonable success.

Definitely recommend having milk soaked bread in the pod until you have a sustainable population.

It took about 4-5 weeks before my pod starting producing larvae.

Nope... You guys are so lucky with year round warmer weather, warmer ocean temps, and great fishing..!
Its not at all surprising in Perth you can have success with BSF.. At a guess, I'd say for a good 9 months of the year too?
But as soon as that average temp drops below 20 degrees, forget it I reckon.. I'm sure others will disagree, but it sure doesn't work down here..
Oh, and I tried the milk soaked bread too.. A LOT..! Still no success.