No need for the dirt in the tote bottom, Sanford. It does nothing for the BSF.Originally Posted by sanford
My large bins are open bottomed and rest directly on the soil - hence, excellent drainage. Though I add a couple inches of soil to these open bottomed bins, I do so only to seal the seam where the wood rests on the ground to prevent larvae from escaping.
My smaller bins all have drainage into collection containers. Eventually, the filters clog and the residue gets anerobic. This holds true with both models of BioPod as well as my home built systems with drainage. The collected effluent is particularly funky smelling, but typically the bins are not - even when the lower layers of residue become anerobic. When you clean out a bin that is filled up is when you will notice the smell from the bottom layers.
Though I use what effluent I collect, it's basically just to dispose of it. I think the residue is far better as a soil amendment than the effluent. If I were youand experimenting with a tote as a bin, I'd drill numerous small holes in the bottom and rest it on soil and forget about collecting the effluent.
If you are in zone 6 or below and below 2000 ft elevation, and not in a desert area, you can probably attract native BSF once the daily high temps in your area are consistantly 80F or higher. Bait your bin with kitchen garbage or even dried animal feed you have soaked in water to a mush-like consistancy. You will first get fruitflies and housefly larvae, but within 3 weeks should see BSF. Once the BSF arrive, your other fly larvae will disappear. The BSF will continue to keep your bin populated through egglaying.
Hope that answered your questions