Breeding Phoenix Worms (black soldier fly larvae) how to

[serramagk]

I ran across a how-to today on how to breed your own Phoenix Worms (Black Soldier Fly larvae) It really seems easy to do, basic household supplies, and they even harvest themselves. Has anyone here tried this and how many were you able to breed?

If anyone is interested the how-to link is http://www.ehow.com/how_4684600_food-reptiles-even-chickens-love.html

 

[Grixxly15]

According to Dr. Phoenix, Phoenix worms get their nutrition from their "secret" grain diet. They won't get a balanced calciumhosphorus ratio by feeding off decaying material.

I have seen a local's compost with like 50,000 of those phoenix worms. He used em as feed for his chickens.

 

[serramagk]

I'm sure he does feed them a special diet to up the values, but they are very nutritious even with nothing special. These are the values on BSF larvae raised from restaurant scrapes.

42.1% crude protein
34.8% ether extract (lipids)
7.0% crude fiber
7.9% moisture
1.4% nitrogen free extract (NFE)
14.6% ash
5.0% calcium
1.5% phosphorus

I was aware that they were feed to chickens as well as fish. I had actually come across an interesting read made by the scientist who conducted the first studies in the 90's. (I believe Dr. Sheppard was one of them) If I find it I'll link it (though I'm sure most of you have already read it) Thanks for your response.

 

[patrickb]

This is a project I am going to try this summer. Seems easy enough, and free food plus composting at the same time sounds like a dream come true. I do work in a restaurant, so a few hundreds scraps of food a week is easily doable for me, though my coworkers think I am nuts enough as it is. lol

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=100832&fpart=1 Checkout that post, it is really long, but ton's of good info in there. That might help ya a bit more as well.

 

[serramagk]

Thanks for the link. Fascinating! I'm thinking I'm going to give this a shot when the weather warms up. Are you going to make your own container?

It sounds like a dream come true for me as well, it's an extra bonus to be doing something to help the environment in the process.

 

[Grixxly15]

How would you clean off the bacteria?