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Black Soldier Fly Larva

mchambers

Former CCA member
I get them in my compost bin frequently (which is a good thing). I never thought to offer them to the fish.
I get a lot of them in my compost bin this time of year and they're easy to harvest with long aquascaping tongs. Most of my fish are too small to eat whole larvae, so I freeze the larvae and then run it through a food processor. You have bigger fish that might appreciate the whole larvae, however.
 

lkelly

Members
I get a lot of them in my compost bin this time of year and they're easy to harvest with long aquascaping tongs. Most of my fish are too small to eat whole larvae, so I freeze the larvae and then run it through a food processor. You have bigger fish that might appreciate the whole larvae, however.

If anyone is searching for a new screen name for the board, "LongAquascapingTongs" should be pretty high on the list.
 

captmicha

Members
I've never found any in my bin, but mine's inside. Not sure about the adults escaping!

There's supposed to be a home harvest kit for growing your own that might be promising.

Am curious why black fly larvae over other insects. Like silk worms. And if they remove the chitin before processing.
 

mchambers

Former CCA member
I've never found any in my bin, but mine's inside. Not sure about the adults escaping!

There's supposed to be a home harvest kit for growing your own that might be promising.

Am curious why black fly larvae over other insects. Like silk worms. And if they remove the chitin before processing.
Mine show up in an outdoor rotating composter, where I put our kitchen waste. They really seem to like coffee grounds.

I haven't seen any kits that I liked, but supposedly they will crawl up ramps into catching bins. Haven't figured out how that would work in this particular composter.

The advantage of BSF is how quickly they convert food waste and how fast they grow. Chitin? It's good for fish, so I highly doubt it is removed.

Edit: Here's a page that explains how well they work (and why we'll all be eating them in the future). They eat twice their body weight every day. http://heilufood.com/blog/black-soldier-fly-larvae
 
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