Aquaponics For Plants, Fish, Flies, Worms, Frogs, & Chickens

Will it be worth it to raise flies for the larva for food for your fish and chickens? If you live alone, it may not be worth the time and results. However for a family the answer may be possibly. It is a bio loop that can connect from your regular farming to aquaponics; and tie together very nicely. If you have a source for plant refuse and garbage, you are all set. At this time I would avoid animal garbage due to disease and other undesirable creatures. If you do use animal refuse it is not advisable to use in your aquaponics operation. Probably would be ok if used on shrubs and flowers. For a stern rebuke and excellent comment on using animal refuse refer to the following link.
http://www.rainbowfish.se/mailgroup/f80.htm

If you are serious about aquaponics you need to get curious about a biopod and how it works. What you should use and how to use it to produce live feed for your fish. It is very practical and very beneficial in order to remain organic in your operation of your aquaponic garden or just a regular garden. For a complete run down go to http://www.thebiopod.com/pages/resources.html You can study what you need to know about raising fly larva. You need to accommodate both. The fly you need for the eggs and the eggs produce the larva that you are wanting to raise for the protein and fat animal food value. Chickens, fish, and frogs go bonkers over these larva.

To learn which kind of fly is the best to be raising go to The BSF Blog. http://blacksoldierfly.blogspot.com/ This blog will identify the proper fly that would be most beneficial for you to have for raising animal feed. The grubs are 42 percent protien and 35 percent fat.

The biopod is a completely enclosed system and is no problem in harvesting. The set up will automatically produce harvested larva constantly once you get it going. All you will have to do is clean it periodically and feed your animals on a daily basis of you protein and fat production. Actually if you are handy, you could build your own biopod with automatic harvesting because of the movement from feeding after it has matured, the larva leave the food source and search for a place to wait for turning into a fly. Just build a ramp and at the end of it they can fall into a container.

Want to see some fun. Drop some larva on the ground for your chickens or a handful into your tank of tilapias or goldfish. That food will disappear in a few seconds. Did you know that a healthy hen (chicken) will live up to 18 years and produce eggs during that time. So plan on keeping your hens around and these larva will help to keep them healthy and producing eggs. The chicken manure is fantastic for your garden. Just don’t use too much.

I hope you will be interested in some of the following links. They will help to teach you what you need to know if you are serious about aquaponics, organic gardening, frog raising, or even other aquatic animals. http://youtube.com/user/larvalover

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RYykLqKy5c Toads eating larva and flys.


Black Soldier Fly Emerging From It's Pupa http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNMtezlpDN8&feature=related

For a detailed commercial type study of raising The Black Soldier Fly.
http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/waste_mgt/smithfield_projects/phase2report05/cd,web%20files/A2.pdf

If you are at all interested, you can actually purchase a garbage disposal that is designed to automatically harvest the BSF larva. (BSF stands for Black Soldier Fly) It’s a little pricy but then I believe it could be worth its weight in gold. The price of the unit is $167. http://blacksoldierflyblog.com/ Going from garbage to chicken and fish feed is something. It is designed to be self harvesting. Diptera: Stratiomyidae is the botanical name for the Black Soldier Fly.

In climate controlled conditions 20 percent of food waste can be bio converted into larva. So a hundred pounds of food waste will convert to 20 pounds of larva; of which are 42 percent protein and 35 percent fat. An excellent ration for chicken feed and fish food. Even frogs, if you were inclined to include frogs in you aquabionic operation. I’m sure there is a high demand for a high quality frog legs. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m sure that this could be developed into an aquabionic frog farm. Frogs love live fly larva. They need to be moving for the frog to see them. You could design your own harvesting of the larva to feed right into your fish aquarium or your frog aquarium or even your chicken yard.

During the process of decomposition of 100 pounds of food scraps by the fly larva you will get roughly 5 pounds of a black rich residue. This is a mixture of undigested food remains as well as the casting and shed chitin exoskeletons from the fly larva. You can use this residue directly in your regular garden. Or if you are into red worm culture, it would be and excellent source of food for your red worms. There is another spin off. Are you into worms.

http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/waste_mgt/smithfield_projects/phase2report05/cd,web%20files/A2.pdf This link will take you to a study of the Black Soldier Fly and Larva and you could possibly learn how to raise the pupa in a commercial operation and be a very profitable source for animal feed. This would be good in counties centres where waste is gathered and used and recycled. Turning garbage into animal feed by the use of larva would be excellent because the by product would be a high grade compost excellent for use in gardens.

I hope all of this hasn’t overloaded you, but it is a result of my study of the Black Soldier Fly and Larva. I never realized before this study how useful a fly could be. There is a place for it, under control. You should be able to make your gardening efforts burst with energy and beauty and health; and lastly help to solve the worlds food shortage.

Thank you for reading my blog. Brad Vigansky