Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi,

Has anyone thought about using mealworms as animal protein for fish?

They already use them for bait for fishing. Herpetologists feed them to their snakes and lizards and aviculturists feed them to all manner of birds.

So why not farmed fish?

You can breed and raise them yourself - a good thing for those of us who want to be a bit more self-sufficient than just using commercial pellets.

They are not actually worms but rather the larvae of the Darkling Beetle and, unlike maggots, they are not reared on stuff that's likely to get you kicked out of the house. They live in, and eat, grain by-products and chicken pellets, etc.

Sounds like a good idea, im just wondering if it would be like the solar debate as far as self sufficiency goes. Electric cars are supposed to be good for the environment but they get their electricity from coal powerstations, etc.

Would Crusts (just the ends of loaves) be a "grain by-product", or would i need to buy the mealworms food (which would be cheaper i'd imagine)?

I have a small pot with some in at the moment. My fish seem to like them.

Anyone know their rate of reproduction?

Daniel.....I'm not sure that I understand the connection between using grain by-products and coal-fired power stations.

I imagine any grain-based product.......oatmeal, some old chicken pellets or mash, mill run or even crushed up stale bread or breakfast cereal (no sugar).....might do. I need to learn more about them before I'd have a good grasp of the full range of things to feed them.

Johnnie.....take a look at http://www.sialis.org/raisingmealworms.htm#super#super .....and there are many other sites which a Google search will reveal.

Lol, that makes two of us GD, yeah i was just checking they would eat grain based scraps, rather than needing some bought food

[quote="Gary Donaldson"]Daniel.....I'm not sure that I understand the connection between using grain by-products and coal-fired power stations.

I think the reference was to processed food rather than a raw material

i have meal worms growing in turkey strarter crumbles, very expensive feed, but i feed these because they eact high protein and thus become high protein themselves. THere reproduction is good but time consuming and much faster when summer comes around. i tried them with my barra but they are very fussy and wil not have a bar of them. don't have any other fish big enough yet to try them.

Is meal worms white worms - Enchaetraeus Albidus (sp?)

I have these and they are booming in a poly box with plain old potting mix (fert incl) and I feed them white bread they love it. I soak it to introduce water to the box. This is what a herpetologist instructed me to do with them.

The worms produce at 1 10/th the weight of bread they consume. Care to be taken that they consume this quickly as the mold that can grow on the bread can be harmful to your fish. They also love white rice.

I have them feeding on half a piece every two days now I hope to get them up to double this rate.

Reasons for population crashes include not culling the worms and the soil souring, test it when the farm is doing well, add a wee bit of lime when it declines in production.

Straight from the Herpetologists mouth. ROFL!

no i think meal worms and white worms are different creatures. Mealworms are the larvawe of the darkling beetle. THey need the medium they grow on to be quiet dry and if it gets too wet then they die. THey are most commonly grown on oats and a finer variety starting with P that I can not remember the name of. I have them to feed to the birds but have never got my arse into gear to do it regularly. they are cool though when you giove them a banana skin and come back twenty four hours later and they have eaten most of it and there is just a huge nuimber of worms around the skin.

Nick, you've sold me, especially with the protein content table. the silver and jade perch are not fussy AT ALL! I don't know if this is becasue i've always fed them a variety of food. I feed them tropical flake, floating pellets, sinking home made food, worms, slugs and grubs.

Today i popped in 2 slugs and two grubs, they take them whole now and the fsh aren't even that big!

Where is the easiest place to get a batch?

most of your larger pet shops will have them and the sooner you atart the better. they take a while to get to decent numbers where you can start selecting them out.

Commercially they have addult beetles in the growing medium and feed them on carrot and potatoe and I feed banana peel and ever couiple of days they will sift the medium and place it in a seperate container. The adults them get more medium and continue doing what they do best reproducing. the eggs in the sifted medium then hatch and they are all roughly the same size and can be harvested miore easily. this continues ad infinitum.

The other beuty is that the keep in the fridge for weeks. THe cold slows the metabolism and you only have to get them out every week or two to feed for twenty four hours or so and then back in they go. will last a long time like this but you have to convince your significant other to have them in the fridge. ( sometimes troublesome)

Time to pick up a spare fridge from the trader

Nick, be realistic with me, is it a viable thing to produce them in reasonable quantities with out too much effort?

Read the link you posted, seems not to be too much of a hassle if you get into a rythm

I don't really think it would be feasable. I had that thought but I don't think you can do it with the turkey started crumble as it has to be quite fine to be able to sieve the growth medium and leave the adults behind.

Pollard was the cereal that they use commercially as it can be sieved well but if you have asthma you would be better off leaving it alone. I you were consistent and had room for enough boxes you could probably do it but I hate to say that you might be better off just buying the fish pellets.

From memory a 40kg bag of pollard is about $40 and the turkey starter crumbles are about the same. You also waist a fair bit in the sieving and discarding. so when combined with the time and the initial investment for the equipment I don't think you would be much in front of the store bought pellets or even the worm farms. They would though probably not require as much physicall space as a series of worm farms.

in summarry probably not feasable IMHO

thanks

I'm sold on the white worms Steve, for smaller fish though, and the best I've ever seen is the self harvesting black soldier fly - magic! That second fridge with a few types of live food and wee freezer compartment to make your own blocks of bugs...would pay in the end.

Google mealworms you're bound to find a cheap housing medium - Aquarists are as fanatical as we are.