Bandi

Completed my second harvest from my maggot trap and I now have just over half an ice-cream bucket full of maggots! I am happy with that amount considering I have only collected from the traps twice. But each time I come in the house I feel itchy all over, like there are maggots in my shoes, my clothes, my hair! I know they are not, but still.... Oh, and by the way, I hope you know my family thinks I am nuts for breeding maggots.

I'll take pictures and post them in the morning but the suspended bucket trick goes like this: This method creates relatively fewer odors...there still will be some, but it wont knock your socks off. Take a clean 5 gallon bucket (with lid) and put many 5/8 inch holes all over it (sides, top and bottom). The holes allow the flies to enter. Put some old freezer meat, dead cat, whatever you have, in the bucket for a "breeding ground" and seal the lid. Now suspend the bucket with a rope or chain over a clean (I used a rubbermaid) tub. I altered the tub just a bit by cutting the center of the tub's lid out in a circle just bigger than the diameter of the five gallon bucket. I have my bucket full of "breeding ground" suspended over, but still a little inside the Rubbermaid tub...I suppose it would work also if you suspend the bucket well above the rubbermaid tub. Now wait 4 days (if weather is warm, longer if weather is cooler) This is how it works. The flies enter the bucket, find prime place to lay eggs. Why prime? because it is warm, indirect sunlight (if using a white bucket) or dark which maggots like if you used a colored or black bucket, and the bucket helps the breeding ground to remain moist another thing maggots like/need. So what happens is the maggots hatch within 8-24 hours of being laid and spend the best of the next 4-6 days eating and growing. After they grow to their maximum size maggots instinctively "go ground" which means they seek out dryer areas. Maggots like to pupate in dry earth. So once they have fed on a carcass or manure, they go down to the ground and crawl along it to a dry place. We use this instinct to our advantage by putting wholes at the bottom of the bucket. The Maggots simply fall out and down into the rubbermaid container which now has a overhang lip created by the lid to prevent escape. Some of the maggots will crawl up the side of the rubbermaid container but you wont loose many because they get stopped at the lid overhang. So when you come to harvest them , bang the rubbermaid container really hard on all sides to get the maggots to fall down. then just dump the maggots out into an ice-cream bucket, put a lid on it for the journey back to the house. Now you can just put the bucket in the freezer (shake the bucket every hour for three hours so they don't freeze in a solid block) or you can add cold water to the bucket and wash off the maggots first. But if you choose to wash them then I would strain them into ice cube trays so they can freeze in portion sized lumps. Harvest your maggots daily, or they will either die (if they are immature) or pupate and fly away. Please note: freezing maggots doesn't necessarily kill them. Once they warm up again, they will wriggle away!!!Yuck all over the kitchen counter. Please note also: you will likely catch maggots of all sizes. Some just seem to fall through the wholes even though they are not mature. But you can always sift the small ones out. Personally, I like the variety as it feeds my community tank containing fish of all sizes. Please note also also: the maggots still have an odor to them, not as bad as the ones I gathered directly from the dead sheep carcass however. Please not also also also: the size of maggots you get depend of the species of fly you attracted. This method can also be used as fly control even if you don't want to collect the maggots...simply put liquid poison (i.e. bleach) in the rubbermaid catch container and this will stop the already existing flies in your yard from creating more...it stops the cycle dead!

Just an update, in case anybody is interested...my two discus are now eating flakes, color crumble and maggots. I feed them 3-4 times daily and have put them in a tank with three medium sized severns. I think that has helped as they see the other fish eat..so they eat also. I just have to make sure the severns don't eat all the food as they are quicker and more food aggressive. The severns get fed on one side of the tank and the discus on the other. That way they are get food.

Scratched the digging in dead carcas idea for the new suspended bucket trick. I get a bigger harvest without all the mess and smell!

Well, today was the first day since creating this topic I was able to harvest some maggots. One of our ewes died a couple of days ago and now the weather has turned warm and....voila!...maggots...lots of them. So I have been scooping them up and putting them in silica sand to wriggle about in until they get nice and dry. Then I sift the wrigglers out and put them in a sealed contained in the freezer. I hope to get enough maggots in the next couple of weeks to stash enough away to last all winter. I am aiming to fill two icecream buckets full. I hope to cut down my food expenses by half. Still will feed some NLS pellets and color crumbles.

In the wild, fish eat maggots (and flies) so I would think this would be a natural food source for them, right? I can usually find maggots on the farm somewhere...should I feed them to my fish? So I have built three home made, small scale maggot traps. By suspending the "breeding ground" in a bucket with 5/8 inch holes in the bottom. The maggots eventually work their way down to the bottom and fall through the holes and into a large rubbermaid tube with an overhang around the sides. Today was day 4 since I "set" the trap and at noon today I collected my first harvest of 1/4 of an ice cream bucket of fresh maggots of all different sizes ready for the freezer. Yummy :cry: As they freeze I am going to shake the bucket so they don't freeze in one solid lump.

Thanks for the comments guys, I look forward to watching them both grow. I find the electric blue to be an absolutely stunning show specimen.

Don't give up until he stops breathing, with many animals, fasting is a natural way of self healing. I don't pretend to be a fish expert but he could still very well pull through. If you know of (or anyone else knows of) a broad spectrum medication that is non stressing (by that I mean not hard in any way on the fish, some meds tax verious organs etc...) then I might consider using it to give him the boost he my need to self heal. Just my two cents. But doing nothing can be helpful as well. Remove any forms of potenial stress and just let him rest...reduce the light for sure as these creatures are more comfortable in the dark.

lovely fish, what is the variety of the fish in the two last photos, red with blue lines. Is that for real or really good lighting? At any rate, simply lovely.

not if you want your tank to live for long I was considering buying a $400 eheim for my tank, but might be trading that idea in for black dirt. Explain the black dirt idea...how does this replace a filter?

So glad you had some success! Hope all goes well. Keep us posted.

I am no help, I read your post the other day and didn't offer any information as I don't feel I have any advice or insight to offer. I see no one else has helped you out either...sorry. I have a clown knife who when I fist got him didn't eat for nearly three weeks because I refused to feed feeder fish to him. But he did eventually give in and now he eats flakes and pellets and algea waffers. Going for three weeks without any food didn't seem to harm him at all. But why yours isn't swimming well, I can't begin to guess. Sorry I can't be more help.

I have two, one is 3.5 inches and the other is 4.5 inches.

:welcome: Never been to GP. I am sure you will learn lots here. I am not into live plants...I go for the colorful fake ones .

:welcome:

HI there, and welcome. This is a great place to make connections and get informed. I grew up in Calgary, but moved to Three Hills 7 years ago.

Yes, I have heard all about the battery operated air pumps and I understand how to set them up and how they work, but I am still concerned about loosing the bacteria in my 6 canister filters (three big tanks). The bubble filters will keep the fish safe during the power outage, but then I might loose most or all of the bacteria in my canisters. So in the long run, my fish may be affected or even killed by a mini cycle once the power is restored.

Thanks for the idea on the canister filters, never thought of running the water to a bucket and then dumping it back in. I'll try that next time. I sort of did what you suggested with the HOBs, so I'm on the right track there. I wasn't too worried about oxygen as I was aggitating the water in the tanks manually and water changes. And like you, temp was controlled with water changes, thankfully our hot water heater is gas, not electric. Thanks for the imput.

I have never seen much success with EB female X BG male. Female EBs are weaker and less commonly found but they are around. Oh, thanks.

4000watts, how much does something like that run $$$$ !!! But that sounds like the way to go. There is always someone home at my place...that isn't the problem. We have a generator but it is not that big...could run one tank at a time....I would have to alternate them every half hour or so.

In lite of my recent 13 15 ( I can't count) hour power outage I want to pick your brains as to what products to look into that can run my filters in case of power outage. Are there batteries or generators that can be purchased to power 3-5 tanks (just the filters would be sufficiant)? I am not concerned too much with the heaters or bubblers...just the canister filters... I have read about battery powered bubble filters...I am not liking that idea. I want a way to keep the bacteria healthy in the canister filter. I don't have any expensive fish...or large scale breeding set up...but I do care for my fish and don't want them to die. But for people who have invested 1000's of dollars into fish...they must have ways to deal with power outages. Any ideas you can share would be appreciated.

Today is the day after a 13 15 hour (can't do math well) power outage in our area. I hear that Red Deer was affected and many other smaller towns in central Alberta. Weather related...tornador force winds and much lightening! Our power went out a 8pm Sat night and didn't come on about until 10:45 am Sunday morning. I spent an all nighter doing 50% water changes on my four running tanks, pumping the primers on all the canister filters (6 in total) to give fresh oxygen and water to the bacteria and flushing the built in lid filter on my one 30g aquarium with tank water. I went to bed at 6:30 am Sunday morning when the power came on (answer to prayers) only to be woken at 9am to be told the power only came on for half an hour. So I got up and preformed water changes on my tanks again. Was halfway through the last tank when the power came on again...this time permenantly. I didn't feed my fish all day yesterday just in case the bacteria in the canisters had been compromised...today water tests showed all good readings. So fish got fed. All fish survived with only showing minor stress simptoms...pale color. But things are all now like nothing happened. Any one else have stories they want to share?

Hey I was just wondering if the EB was a sex linked gene and by that I mean, can you have females exhibiting the electric blue...or are they always just carriers? I hear you talk about keeping the female blue genes and breeding them to male EBJDs, but what about breeding the male blue genes and matching them up with female EBJDs? Just wanted some feedback on that concept.

So, it has been a week and a bit since I got the discus and I have done what was suggested...soaking pellets and flakes in blood worm juice... I have seen them eat some flakes..and I give in and feed small amouts of blood worms to them once every other day. I still offer various foods two to three times a day. They are eating...but hardly at all, except the blood worms, they come alive when they realize blood worms are floating around.

I don't think he has deformities...what is beakface? I'll look for it. How big is your EBJD...I am curious to know at what size they can breed at.