Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Black Soldier Fly project

Hey Randy, I thought about you the other day while I was feeding BSFL to my fish. I hardly saw any redears during the winter, but they did not forget about BSF! I kept my colony going with some insulation and the larvae I have now were laid last fall.

I haven't seen any adult BSF yet this year. They probably won't show up until late April. Until then I'll just have to resist the urge to feed all of my larvae to the fish. Of course there are plenty of pupae around my property just waiting for some warm weather to hatch and mate, but I have a bunch of starter kits to make so I want to be conservative.

I feel the same way about the tea. I haven't worked with it as fertilizer but generally speaking it would have to be pretty darn good to inspire me to collect it. I'm also planning to drain it into the ground.

I do have a large amount of BSF compost I want to experiment with. I see tomatoes in my future.

I should have plenty hatch out from last year - I released many of them. I tried the tea in different concentrations on a section of grass near my pond and never saw any difference. I agree about the tomatoes. I think that was my larvae's favorite food.

I've read your whole blog. My wife is NOT as enamored with my fascination with "maggots", but she's okay with me coming up with a way to provide a healthy diet for her chickens. I'm building my pets a home using a plastic flower pot with the saucer of a larger pot as the lid. My question has to do with getting them started. If the container was sealed, how large would I make holes in the sides to allow the adult females to come in and lay eggs?

Hi robwok,

Here's a photo of my first BSF unit:



You can see the holes I made relative to the adult BSF. If you look at the left side of the bucket you'll see a green circle and a female black soldier fly entering one of the holes. Males don't come to food scraps and are rarely seen. Adult BSF (the flies) don't eat, they mate, lay eggs and then die. That's why you never see many of them at one time. I've never seen a "swarm" of adult BSF, even when I had a colony of probably over 100,000 larvae and even though I've released an equal number of mature larvae on my property.

The biggest problem with my bucket set up was that it wasn't vented enough to provide sufficient cooling. BSF generate a lot of heat when they're processing food. One hot day I lost a large number of the larvae in this bucket. Of course the bucket didn't allow self harvesting either, it was just a way to get started. At some point I want to design a DIY unit that will allow people to experiment with BSF for only a few dollars. It wouldn't have the efficiency and convenience of a BioPod, but it would be good enough to introduce people to bio-composting. If yours works out well maybe you would share the design.

My girl was also very skeptical of the BSF at first, but within a few months she was holding them in her hand. People react badly at first because maggots are equated with swarms of disease carrying pests. Once someone understands that BSF are harmless and don't pose a threat they usually relax a bit. Even later when they see the valuable service BSF perform some even begin to feel affection for these wonderful bugs.

Thanks for posting. I hope to hear more about your progress.

okay, that's very helpful. I think I may have made a mistake in choosing a dark color for my "composter". I've had a couple hurdles to cross, but I'd love to be able to show the design. Maybe another week or so.

A dark color is fine if you always keep it out of direct sunlight which is the recommended practice.

Hello GW
Just finished reading your thread and I am trying to attract
BSF we should have them here unless the deforestation has driven them out.

Hi Papa Poul. It's sad about the deforestation, but I don't think it would harm the BSF population. BSF are attracted to shrubs when seeking mates, but they don't require it.

You may want to consider starting a traditional compost pile because BSF often show up in them. Good luck and please keep us posted!

Hi all. As you can see from the photo below I moved my BSF colony close to the pond. It's nice to have a ready supply of bait, but I feel like I'm cheating. I've been feeding BSF grubs to my fish since the pond was built and so there's not much hesitation by the fish when I throw them one with hook in it.



I have warmouth in this pond, which I'm happy about but the population is exploding pretty quickly. Using the grubs I can pull out a few dozen smaller fish in a fairly short time. I'm taking these culls and feeding them to the BSF colony. I feel much better about culling fish when they're being put to some productive use for the pond.

Originally this was a redear/fathead pond but I did stock WM in my neighbor's pond upstream. (which I guess is the same as stocking them in my pond...) Anyway I'm enjoying the little hawgs and several of them are getting near 1/2 pound now. The RES I stocked a little over a year ago are around 10" and almost 3/4 pounds. The RES also hit the BSF well as do the CC I just stocked last month.

I got a little surprise the other day when I caught a bullhead on one of the grubs. I've had water go over the emergency spillway several times, but this big boy weighed 1.5 lbs and was not quite 12" long. My guess is that he moved into the pond maybe a year ago when it was new, and then he did most of his growing in the pond. To date it's the largest fish I've caught with the BSF grubs.

Nice looking fish GW, the BSF feed the fish, and the fish feed the BSF, great cycle.

Hi GW, good to hear from you again. I still don't have any BSF eggs
yet. A few of the grubs made it through the winter so hopefully
they'll start doing their thing because the BioPod is set up and loaded with fruit.
As AP stated above "great cycle", but do you see any downside to this?
Hope all is well, Randy

I do have a compost bin that I started a month ago and the bucket I,m using for the BSF is next to it.

Nice pond GW you are making home sick for upstate New York

Hey Randy, you should see BSF mating within a few weeks. Keep in mind that the BSF grubs you still have won't eat much at all unless the temp of the colony gets into the mid 70's. If you wanted to you could move the BioPod to a sunny spot temporarily, but you'd have to be ready to move it as soon as the hot weather gets here. Since you've been so supportive I would be happy to send you some free BSF eggs if you want to jump start your colony, just let me know when you're ready.

So far the only downside to this set up is that I'm spending too much time fishing. My biggest mistake was leaving a bream pole by the BioPod. How can I not throw "just one" grub on a hook and "sample the fish population" when I'm there? After all, the fish need thinning and the BSF need food! But seriously, I don't think there will be a downside to keeping the colony there. I've put whole fish in the unit for a few days now and the smell is very mild because the grubs consume them so quickly. I've only seen a few houseflies around and I haven't seen any inside the BioPod. I just have to be careful not to overload the colony with food, but even if I do I'll just skip feeding it for a day or two and it will balance itself out.

I added a few small WM to the unit late yesterday and the day before. I went to take a photo of the progress this morning but the fish were completely gone. That's an average of about one pound of fish per day with no problem. My current colony is only two weeks old except for a handful of grubs left from last year, so most of them are still pretty small. I think a large established colony could handle 4-5 pounds per day or more. I'm very curious about how the high protein diet will effect the growth of the grubs.

If you want to check out the menu at Le Magot I'm keeping a log of everything I feed them: BioPod Log - Waste in - Grubs out

Here's a few RES I caught with the grubs. I know the photos don't prove anything about BSF, but fish pics are always good, right?

Thanks Papa Poul. You might want to avoid looking at the photos of "adirondack pond's" pond.

The grubs should be easy to spot in either your bucket or in the compost pile. You can also look for the BSF adults and eggs. This thread at the BioPod forum can help with identification:

http://thebiopod.com/forum/index.php?topic=29.0

GW, no downside with doing more fishing. I was wondering if the fish eating the larvae (that consist of the remains of fish) would be a problem later on for fish - especially if repeated over and over???
HIJACK ALERT
Did you and Cindy get your ponds completed?

Randy, I've done some thinking about the closed loop represented by grubs eating fish/fish eating the grubs, and my guess is that it's not a problem. I think that because of the dynamic you find in the pond in first place where every species is feeding on every other species including their own kind. In other words I'm picturing the pond as a closed loop itself, or at least somewhat closed if that makes sense.

For example; BSF grubs eat a small fish from my pond and then other fish eat those grubs. The fish that eat the grubs could have just as easily eaten the fish that were fed to the grubs, depending on their size. Parasites or pathogens would be passed from fish to fish as they eat each other, and inserting the BSF into the chain doesn't seem like it would change much IMO.

Having said that, injecting BSF into the equation might actually lessen the survival of pathogens/parasites. Tests indicate that BSF reduce e. coli and salmonella in food waste. The digestive system of BSF grubs is extremely powerful, lowering the survival rate of pathogens.

There are also studies that indicate that the mature BSF grubs secrete an anti-biotic. I'm not completely sure about the accuracy of those studies, but I'll look into them again and report back.

I do have some first hand evidence that the BSF might reduce some parasites in the food chain. I first mentioned this almost 2 years ago in this same thread: http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=87545#Post87545

It seems that the fish I fed to the colony at that time had a living parasitic worm in it. I think the BSF grubs ate the fish but avoided the worm. If that parasite came from the fish then it does represent removal from the pond. I assume it did come from the fish because that was the only animal I had fed to the colony. Here's the photo showing the parasite which is near the anal fin:

(click to enlarge)


Even though the BSF didn't necessarily kill the parasite it's not likely it would survive in the colony or that it would make it back to the pond. I suppose it's possible that the worm could get into a grub, but I have strong doubts about it.

I'm aware of concerns about these types of loops with regards to fowl and mammals, but my guess is that fish are different. I think it might have something to do with the fact that fish are basically cannibalistic. I'm interested what you all think about this.

Hi Jerry, I hate to give a short response to such a well presented reply to my question, but I can find no holes in what you say. It now makes sense to me, and I think I'll start adding a few fish to the BioPod. Thanks, and I hope all is well.

Everything is great Randy, thanks. I'm open to ideas about the wisdom of this setup, but for now I'm forging ahead.

I forgot about your hijack attempt. Yes, Cindy's 7 acre pond is finished and filled thanks to a few very rainy days a few months ago. The clay pit for the dam was also made into a pretty little pond a few hundred feet from the big pond and it's also full. The little pond is my new RES/FH experiment because it's not likely to have any outflow to the creek. It's basically a sky pond with a spring/drain that keeps it level with the water table.

I added another 3/4 pounds of whole fish to the BSF colony today (and caught a 9 oz piggy WM too ).

GW Took a ook at the thread you sent it was very helpful. I also joined the BSF worm forum and haven't gotten the conformation email for it. Got any idea why it is taking so long.

no sign of BSF yet but it has been rainy in the late afternoon

Nothing in spam either GW. Does wet weather play a big roll with the presents of BSF, because we are entering the wet season and to rains almost everyday in mid to late afternoon.
Al

I'll ask the admin of the forum to look into your problem. You may want to try registering again for now.

Humidity is a very important factor in the BSF life cycle. The grubs require high humidity to thrive. You can still culture BSF in a dry climate, but it depends on maintaining a moist environment for the colony. Regular additions of kitchen scraps and other high water content material helps.

On the other hand I don't often see adult BSF (flies) on rainy days. They are most active on hot sunny days, usually between noon and late afternoon in my area. Even a warm cloudy day seems to noticeably reduce the presence of adult BSF.

Hi GW

I've just joined the forum, firstly because I was looking for Maggot Breeding info, but based on your posts from over two years ago, I've become very interested in the BSF option.

My first pot went out today, so we'll see.

Just a note from Darkest Africa

Regards

Welcome John, in what part of Africa are you located? Do you know that BSF are present in your area? As mentioned above, humidity is a key factor in supporting a wild population. I'm always interested in confirming BSF presence around the world.