Black Soldier Flies In My Compost

While watering my compost pile I noticed a lot of Black Soldier Flies.
These flies are prized for their larvae, and many people raise them for chicken and fish food.
They are extremely beneficial and will help decompose compost very quickly. They will also help to keep pesky House Flies away and will not bother people like House Flies

Soon i will build a Black Soldier Fly barrel and begin to raise the larvae for my fish.

Heres another design from Chris Smith at Coastview Aquaponics - very simple and inexpensive.

Along the same lines is this house fly composter.  At first you might ask why would I want to attract house flies.  But if the chickens are eating virtually every maggot they will not survive long enough to reproduce.  In fact the chickens will also eat flies. 
My neighbors dogs are responsible for the flies, this is another way to control the populations.

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Now Back to the Black Soldier Flies

If you are new to either Aquaponics or this site and dont know anything about BSF, here is a quick run down.

The Black Soldier Fly lives its life far removed from the type of fly we all encounter in our homes.

It doesnt normally come in contact with humans.

So you would normally go through life without ever seeing one.

Unlike house flies, they dont hang around rubbish EXCEPT to lay their eggs near food suitable for their offspring.

Their offspring, the pupae, are ravenous eaters of most food-scraps.

In fact unlike worms, they will clean up a kilo of scraps in 24 hours if you have enough of them.

The other reason we are interested in them is that they are a brilliant food source for fish as they provide almost all of the necessary nutrition required for most fish that are suitable for Aquaponics.

Throw in the odd handful of fish pellets and bingo you have almost free fish food and this means you or rather the larvae have completed the Aquaponics cycle.

All that is needed is a suitable container set up for them, some corn to draw in the female BSFs and some food scraps.

They find their way into your "catching pen", you pour them into a plastic bag, seal and freeze them until you need them.

The container can be bought or made as a DIY project. Details below:

Here is the Black Soldier Fly DIY Project

Click here for the Commercial version in the US

Click here for the Commercial version in Australia

Now more information on the BSF.(just click and enjoy)

The BSFL is a familiar denizen of compost , known for a voracious appetite and ability to rapidly break down organic waste

 A little secret. In fact, Several little Secrets....


Successful drainage in a BSF unit is achieved through a...

Several pounds of cucumber GONE..........

I noticed BSF in my traditional compost last Summer

Googling this issue, it appears that what is co-existing in the bin alongside the worms are actually "black soldier fly" larvae...

Murray Hallam demonstrates how to use the Bio-Pod to harvest Black Soldier Fly Larvae as an alernative source of fish food in an Aquaponics system.

More later
Happy Growing, composting and fishing...
Ozzie

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