Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I feel like I have gone 99.5m and failed at the last bit. I have built a pod, stocked it with food, and watched it for a couple of months now. I am harvesting bsf now sucessfully, but when I toss them into the pond, they just swirl around and the fish ignore them.

Are my bluegil so used to pellet food that they have no killer instinct anymore ? Any suggestions on how to train these guys to eat the wholesome, tasty grubs that they are supposed to adore ?

Richard

Start feeding 3/4 pellets and 1/4 BSF...as the fish get used to them go 50/50 then 25/75 until you can feed as much as you like....

+1 Gnash - yep, just mix 'em in with your other food. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen

I would think the fish would figure it out if you stopped feeding them the regular food and maybe cut the BSF in half so they could smell how yummy they are inside?

That's what I have been doing. I toss just a few pieces of food to ring the dinner bell, then toss some bsf. They greedily eat the pellets, in fact their action is so fierce that when a larger one hits a couple pellets, it has actually tossed a pellet out of the water in the violent splash.

I tried cutting a bsf in half, but not with anything very sharp. They are tough like leather. I'll bring some non-kitchen scissors. Actually, I'll use some pruners. Perhaps chuming with a few halves will give them the right idea...

Put them in apple sauce???

When I got home yesterday, I pulled back the shade cloth and tossed in a couple pieces of koi pellets. they are light colored, and I am sure easy to spot. Bammm ! The fish got them. Next, I take down the BSF bucket that they drop into and jiggle it around since I have some dried leaves and mulch like stuff for them to hide under. There are an easy 50 or 60 BSF, I bet.

I take my pruners and cut one in half. I did it over the tank and the two halves fall in. Bamm !! A big boy gets it, both halves. For the next few minutes, each cut one that falls in is immediately eaten. The intact ones are eaten 30%-50% of the time, others make the orbit around the FT at least twice. I probably fed 20 - 30 bsf to my fish. It was cool. Then I tossed in some ground up pellets to let the smaller ones eat stuff also.

Thanks for the suggestion to cut the bsf larvae before tossing them in.