Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Welcome to the madness emsjoflo.
I would be surprized if they are that far north. I haven't a clue. Just testing if they can survive me in Iowa.

Hello ems, I have been to Wasilla...lucky you. The BSF are from the tropics. They certainly die below freezing. Can you keep them going in a building always over say 40F? Their metabolism really slows down below 55F. There life cycle is in weeks in the tropics but slow down steadily as temp drops. At temps below 60F they stay larvae for months. I assume they eat much less as well. There are problems keeping them in cold climates, even Michigan. Several of us are going to try. Keep an eye on this topic (stay tuned) and you will see how it goes. Or jump in and join the experiment. We would value hearing your experiences.

Hi,

I first encountered BSF in my bulk run worm bed years ago......but I didn't know what they were until I read Doug's initial posts on this thread.

Steve, they will grow in Melbourne. You don't need to use meat. While they'll eat it they are easier to get along with if you just use kitchen/vegetable scraps.

In their final stage of pupation, the BSF crawl out of the compost and become flies. The males never return to the food source. They then fly into nearby trees and mate. They only live for 5 - 8 days after they become flies.

I feed BSF every day now. The biggest issue is keeping up the supply of food scraps - they have a voracious appetite.

Interestingly, other flies will lay their larvae in the composting vegetables and food scraps as well. When you transfer the rotting material to a tub, you'll notice maggots of all different species and sizes walking up the ramp. They all go into the freezer and my fish don't discriminate on the basis of size or colour - they eat them all.

Gary

Gary, have you let any of them pupate fully yet? I'm wondering how long it takes.

Hi John,

I imagine that they've done it (flown) without me even knowing that it's happened.

It seems that, in the optimum conditions, BSF will mature into flies in as little as 14 days. What's remarkable is that, if conditions are not as they should be, the larvae may take up to 6 months to progress through the five stages of pupation.

Gary

GF, you should take one for the team and dedicate your greenhouse to BSF larvae production exclusively. See how many you can produce in the warm months and freeze them for fish food later.

LOL, That's just too much chicken poop for me Dave.
They will have a small netted area, a BSF studio apartment as it were. I made a ramp along the inside of a bucket and transfered the larva and poop into that. They are quick to get out of the light and seem to be eating up.
I'll put a few plants inside the netted enclousure and hope that works. If thats a go then perhaps let em run free, we shall see.
Call your in-laws and schedule a visit! ... Grin

Hi,

Today, I noticed a bit of movement in the very small quantity of rotting food scraps that are in my compost bin.

I gathered up the compost containing the larvae and put it into my small harvesting set up. I harvested about a litre and a half of larvae from a relatively small quantity of compost.

Gary

Damn those critters look fantastic Gary.... I wish we had a similar thing here in W.A., but I have never seen them...

So do you encourage them in any way to breed in your compost, or is this just what anyone in your area could do...?

Man, thats it, I may not have seen them around, but you've talked me into it, my chook scraps are now going into a bucket outside to see if I can't attract any stray ones that may happen to be in Perth...

Gary, have you fed them to the chooks?

I imagine they would go for them in a big way!

"Honey, have you seen my brand new Pyrex measuring cup? I was going to do some baking."

Gary, thats fantastic work! Your obviously the BSF source.

EB,

You've got them in Perth for certain. They're virtually all over the world. You're probably like me and had them and didn't even know what they were at the time.

I don't do anything special at all - I just use a cheap composting bin (the one with plenty of air vents) and place all of our kitchen scraps in it. Remember that the BSF female has to gain access to the scraps to lay her eggs.

The scraps will seem to build up for a while then suddenly everything will seem to go rotten pretty quickly (almost black). From that point on, you don't seem to be able to keep up with supply of kitchen scraps.

At this point, gently move the top layer of scraps aside and, if they're there, you'll see the larvae writhing around underneath. Time to harvest.

Doug.....I know that poultry and game birds eat BSF larvae.

Janet......it's funny that once you use the kitchen stuff for BSF larvae just once, the woman just seems to lose interest in it. Now where's the Magimix?

Gary

Gary, are the larva about the same size and color as they crawl the ramp?
Its my understanding the darker ones are the oldest and am curious it the white ones jump out should I put them back in the poop untill they darken.
Could you give some temps of your area? Compost bin in shade or sun?
My larva crawl to the top when in the shade not sure if they are attempting to leave because they don't like their home or what's the case.
The temp of their area is around 80-90 deg, sound about right?

Reading in the literature the BSF larvae can only be fed in limited quantities.
One study stated that around 7% was ok for chooks. Another found no ill effects for channel catfish at feeding rates of 20% (although they didn't grow the catfish to a large size (limited time trial)).

The two problems identified were % of fat and chitin.

Fat causing the fatty liver disease but excessive chitin does what?

I'm guessing that any final stage larval food is going to have a lot of fat because the organism will gorge itself to have enough energy to pupate and emerge with an energy reserve to do what it needs to do (whether to find its first adult food or mate and die). What about earlier larval stages?

BSF may be able to be fed in larger proportions if the earlier larval has less fat. Or would the earlier larval forms still have lots of fat as they pack it on to go to the next larval stage? Or does their food get converted straight to protein and growth? I'd imagine that the softer skinned light coloured lavae would have less chitin but is chitin the real problem?

Earlier larval stages wouldn't self harvest as easily but they may be worth the effort givin how easy it is to feed and culture them?

Stuart