Anyone have a BioPod Plus colony?

[clarkrw3]

So I opened one of my cups of phoenix worms today to discover about 20 Black Solder Flies (BSF). This got me thinking and searching about BSF's and if they are safe to feed to Chams and how do you raise them. After a bit of research I discovered the BSF Blog and subsequently the BioPod Plus which seems like a great "green" way to feed our chams some great Calcium rich food. After a bit of research on CF I could not find anyone using this nifty little container or growing their own Phoenix worms. I have NO affiliation with the BSF blog or the BioPod but It really does look cool and would be a great way to get rid of "good" food waist and harvest worms.

http://blacksoldierflyblog.com/biopod%E2%84%A2plus-2nd-generation/

and here is a little Youtube video
http://youtu.be/G6vOZtn70Fc

I couldn't get the video to embed so I linked it

So what do you all think?

 

[fluxlizard]

I've got one started but I'm still learning a lot.
I made my own out of a garbage can buried most of the way into the earth with holes drilled in the bottom for drainage at the beginning of May.
Sort of a giant version of the 5 gallon bucket version thinking I wanted millions. Later I read that a 5 gallon bucket can still have something like 70,000 in it, so maybe I was a bit ambitious LOL. But I want to use them to feed a lot of lizards if I can get them going.

Combined the 5 gallon home-made biopod with a plan on another blog that used the earth directly beneath their barracks for drainage to raise the grubs.
I added a thousand grubs.
So far I'm learning more what not to do- I think I saw too many videos of grubs eating stuff up on youtube so I've been overfeeding. I keep adding so much that it lasts like a week. I also attracted mites by using sawdust (lots and lots of mites and they weren't in the sawdust but I guess moist sawdust attracted them) and the sawdust heated up super hot once from composting. I haven't gotten any grubs crawling out my tube either- they are happy to change in the can to flies so far, but I always see several soldier flies around and in the can.

 

[clarkrw3]

I've got one started but I'm still learning a lot.
I made my own out of a garbage can buried partway into the earth with holes drilled in the bottom for drainage at the beginning of May.
Sort of a giant version of the 5 gallon bucket version.
Combined with a plan on another blog that used the earth directly beneath their barracks for drainage to raise the grubs.
I added a thousand grubs.
So far I'm learning more what not to do- I think I saw too many videos of grubs eating stuff up on youtube so I've been overfeeding. I also attracted mites by using sawdust (lots of mites) and the sawdust heated up super hot once from composting. I haven't gotten any grubs crawling out my tube either- they are happy to change in the can to flies so far, but I always see several soldier flies around and in the can.

From what I understand once you get enough grubs in there they expel all other insects so that you no longer get contamination.

Funny you say learning what not to do...that is what I have been doing with silkworms. Seems like I kill more than I feed...LOL

 

[chameleonoobie]

Your Phoenix worms (black soldier fly larvae) must have been ordered as very large, in the last stage before turning into the fly. Hard to justify spending $180.00 for the biopod but if you’ve got it, go for it. Check Youtube and you can find several home made tubs converted to self harvesting BSF larvae. I made a simple bucket type with a coil of hose inside for a crawl off ramp that dumps into a collection tub as seen in a couple of those videos. I haven’t attracted any native black soldier fly adults yet, so I plan on letting some of my worms become flies. I keep my bucket in my walk in screen house cage which has a small shed for one wall that houses my cricket tubs. I clean them and dump the dead crickets and old veggies, etc right into the bsf bucket.

Here’s a picture of the bucket I made, pretty self explanatory if you check out the sight link you provided, also what it looked like when the BSF larvae was added to the moldy mush that started out a cheap bag of dog food, and finally a few days later the mush is now a uniform black compost-looking substrate with worms churning and eating everything possible. They should start crawling off in a few days up the tube looking for a clean place to turn into flies, which is how they “self harvest” themselves when they are finished with the larvae stage. You can obviously take them out at any stage if you want small ones.

Sorry I don't know how to do pictures with a thumbnail and all that...

 

[clarkrw3]

That is super cool! Thanks for sharing. Yes the cost is pretty high for there little Biopod but it does look convenient.

 

[chameleonoobie]

I ordered 150 small Phoenix worms from Josh’s frogs to get my bucket started. You are supposed to use the cardboard as an egg deposit site for the adult flies. I haven’t seen any adults or evidence of eggs, but some must have laid eggs directly in the mush because my bucket seems to have a thousand worms. Maybe they did and I just didn’t see them or something. I had about forty crawl off just today, which was cool to come home to. I’ll know for sure if I start getting more out than I put in, but seriously there looks like a lot more than 150 larvae in there. Just a note, this bucket I built to mimic the one I saw on youtube videos took about an hour. The whole thing including the worms to get it going I don’t think add up to twenty dollars, so keep that in mind. Seems to be working pretty good so far.