Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

VB, Its in a fine wire mesh "box". The mesh holes are about 1cm square.
got the mesh from Bunnings when we had some young chicks.
But the sugar cane mulch, milk and egg have bound pretty well together so that nothing is falling in the water.

Sounds great Jamie - will continue to watch this thread and will try some things myself when I get the time. I do like the idea of the self feeding.

Hi BK,



Yep......maggots will still breed in cool weather, they just take longer to work through the various stages.


Gary

My maggot trials have produced maggots again. I used a couple of slices of calf's liver in one and a bread and milk mix for the other.

Once the baits had been stung, I moved them into a larger container and, in the case of the liver, I covered the whole mess with a layer of mill run (a mix of wheat bran and pollard). Surprisingly, there is no smell to speak of.

I placed the small container of bread and milk into a larger container and packed mill run around it.

In both cases, I have found maggots around the lid, so obviously these guys would rather be somewhere else (there may be too much light).

At this stage, I favour the bread and milk bait on the basis of cost. There's no point using a $2.00 heart to produce the same amount of larvae.....you might just as well feed the chopped heart to your fish. It's excellent protein and you don't get the glares from the Minister for War and Finance.

As a matter of interest, the flies that struck my baits are the common housefly. We don't often see blowflies (bluebottles) around here.

Gary

Gary

Hi,

The emerging challenge in maggot farming is keeping the little sods long enough to feed them out.

Every time I lift the lid on the plastic container in which I'm keeping them, they are gathered around the inside of the lid......just waiting to walk.

The use of mill run certainly seems to tame the odour. Even the calf's liver is not too bad.

Gary

what is pollard?

Hi dthawk,

Bran and pollard are both byproducts of the flour milling process.

When sold mixed together, they are referred to as mill run.

Gary

Gary, you mentioned using sawdust as a cover for the bait and maggots. Would wood shavings (the curly bits) work as well? I've got a good source of those (we use them in the chook yard and near the kids sand pit)

Where abouts is mill run obtainable from? would it be fodder stores, or do supermarkets have them?
Thanks once again

Any decent fodder store should have pollard

Jaymie, sawdust works much better in that it seals out the air and controls the smell. Sahvings will work but only if they are moisened after they are applied. Sawdust is a trick we used when disposing of dead pigs on the pig farm. We would simply put them on the ground in a shady spot and cover with sawdust. In the US it is aan EPA approved way of disposing of carcasses of cattle and pigs. No smell.

I used to use pollard instead of meal for meal worms. It is a bit coarser and lasts longer.

My maggots have left again.

I'm trying to come to grips with the idea that I can grow bucketsful of maggots when I'm not trying but, when I want to grow some free fish food, they leave before I have a chance to introduce them to the fish.

Just as I was about to chuck my two baits out, I noticed that a couple of dozen flies (halfway between a common housefly and a blowfly) were showing intense interest in the old bread and milk bait.

One more time......

What the heck? Where do they disappear to?

When my pop used to breed maggots for fishing, he would wrap an old fish carcass in some newspaper and let the flies go to town on it. Then when the grew a bit, he would add the bran and pollard mix. I don't know the timing or details as I was a wee laddie and stayed well clear until it came time to put them on the hooks!

I'm beginning to think that the newspaper idea might be the way to go.