Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey guys!!

After almost a week of the baby sleeping through at night I have woken out of my stupor and ordered 25 perch & 30 uncoloured goldies from livefish.com.au and am now considering food sources.

(Can you belive it? She's only 8 weeks old and has begun sleeping from 10pm to 5 am and then back to sleep till 8 am - then its all systems go for most of the day.- I know I know it may not last but any opportunity to sleep at night is a luxury).

Ive been thinking about the plethora of houseflies that hang around my garden chooks - not only do i want to collect maggots for the fish but was wondering about feeding them the flies as well. How can i catch them without sticky paper?
I am thinking about some kind of device that they would fly into with meat in it for the maggots but also that the flies get stuck in as well.
Any ideas? Seen anything on the net with diagrams? would love a link or two to get the imagination going.

Thankyou!!!!

Aeon

Aeon,
I've got an old fan grill hung up over the tank with a couple of bits of old food on it. The eggs are laid by the flies and the maggots eventually fall straight in.
Can smell a bit, but that's how you get the flies interested.

Full nights sleep are a blessing!

oops, missed the bit about trapping the flies too, sorry haven't sorted that bit out yet

off topic, but nonetheless, can you impart your wisdom on sleeping at night LOL. You must have the magic touch. Well done!

mine slept through at 3 weeks and 2 1/2 weeks. Great to get a sleep, but I nearly exploded

Monya, drugs are good for you and the child

Hi aeon,
there was some discussion along the lines of using a coke bottle:
cut off the top and invert into the other part
use a piece of meat (or other fly delicacy)
tie meat and dangle down neck of bottle
hold meat in position by use of a stick or plastic do-dah (see pic)

Idea is, flies crawl down neck and into bottle and can't get out - empty bottle periodically into fish tank (bonus would be maggots)

This is a pic of my interpretation:

Hi Aeon ,sleep deprivation aint it great.

What about a container like an icecream bucket,25mm of water in bottom, hole in lid 25mm pvc pipe in hole glued in so smell proof. Pvc pipe extending to within 35mm or so of bottom, little mesh cage attached to side of pipe or underside of lid for bait.Flies smell bait crawl down pipeand come out inside container flyaroud to find bait either lay eggs on bait fall in or both.

Ps just had extra brain wave ,if you had same setup as above but cut bottom out of container and floated on styrofoam float it would self feed the fish.

Tonight I am moving out. I need sleep.

and remove another labour intensive AP chore - I like it

wonder how long it would take the fish to knock it over (random thoughts), icecream container would be a better option to coke bottle

Exactly my thoughts, Ell. Funnel-style traps are common here for wasps, fruit flies, and lobsters. There's also a commercial Japanese Beetle trap here that uses chemical phermone and floral scent as the lures. The beetles hit a yellow deflector and drop into a funnel-necked bag. Of course flies are better fliers than Japanese Beetles. Come to think of it, I heard of a guy who used the JB trap, but cut the bottom out of the bag and hung it over a plate in his chicken coop. The beetles would fly into the trap, fall through the bag, and make a 'ding' on the plate. The chickens quickly learned to come running when they heard the dinner bell! Hmmm...something for you to adapt.

I've been swatting a lot of flies recently out the back and throwing them into the fish tank, strange thing is that my fish don't seem to eat the flies. I've thrown in probably 15-20 over the last few days, some still alive, some dead and I haven't seen one get eaten. I've even thrown floating feed pellets in next to the kicking flies in the hope that they would get eaten in the excitement, but after all of the pellets are gone, the flies were still left floating...

Maybe it's just my fish.....

Pampered ("If im going toeventually be eaten im sure as shootin not eating that cr#@*p")

I like the maggot feeder. Like Jaymie has.

Suspend food above the tank in something that will

1. Keep the food in
2. Let the maggots fall out

My fish (carnivores not goldies) don't like flies but eat every other insect of a size including spiders. They'll hit worms as big as they are and tear them to pieces, flies, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz (that's the sound of sleepy bored fish)

anything that flies, crawls and creeps and has the misfortune to get caught by us ends up as fish food. Most get eaten pretty quickly snap!

Edited by CL