Mosquito larvae

[sharkweek178]

We all know that fish love them. And it's that time of year. So what are your tips and tricks for cultivating them?

I have a couple plastic bins going. I started them with a mesh bag full of grass clippings. But now the water is so green that it probably isn't necessary. I might be harvesting too frequently. I had one harvest that got me so many that I had plenty left over for freezing. Haven't had any as good this season. My most recent got some bloodworms and I saw the teeny tiny mosquito larvae. But no good sized larvae. Maybe if I give it a few more days in between harvests, I'll get better results. But, OTOH, I don't want any maturing to adulthood.

 

[GaryE]

I check every day, and don't get many. Yet. You can overharvest Daphnia, but mosquitoes are gifts from above. It's not like you'll harvest your breeders... The pattern here has been lots of mosquitoes in August. I hope I only see them in cultures - airborne ones were nasty last year, and absent the year before.

 

[sharkweek178]

I check every day, and don't get many. Yet. You can overharvest Daphnia, but mosquitoes are gifts from above. It's not like you'll harvest your breeders... The pattern here has been lots of mosquitoes in August. I hope I only see them in cultures - airborne ones were nasty last year, and absent the year before.

I check every few days. I usually get a nice little batch. I'm thinking of putting out another bin of water so I can have extras that I can freeze.
I also realized that I've created a nice supply of green water for when I start culturing daphnia.

 

[sharkweek178]

Most of the water had evaporated out of my bins. So I started over and refilled them with fresh water. I did a little experiment. One of them, the larger one, I put in a mesh bag with grass clippings and an apple core. The other one I poured in a little milk.
They both produced larvae pretty quickly. Within a few days. But the one with milk had a weird white gunk in it that I had to put a little extra effort into separating the larvae from.

 

[Uberhoust]

I have a couple of small ponds without fish. During the summer I just scoop the larva out using a large fish net, rinse into a cup of aquarium water and dump into my fishtank. I am not very consistent with it. The extra mosquitoes feed the swallows.

 

[Colin_T]

For everyone reading this, it is illegal to culture mosquitoes in most countries due to the diseases they can spread. So anyone who happens to have containers of water sitting around the property should regularly harvest and remove the mozzie larvae so they can't turn into adults and bite people.

Surplus mozzies that aren't fed to the fish can be frozen in ice cube trays and used as fish food when the adults aren't breeding in the area.

 

[sharkweek178]

I was helping someone drain a pond yesterday. There was a leak in the side of liner. There were some minnows in it. But since the water wasn't deep enough, they died over the winter. So we were draining it and I saw lots and lots of mosquito larvae in that dirty gross water. I thought it was way too early in the season given how cold it's been lately. I wasn't about to harvest those larvae. Since fish had been in that water, I don't know what kind of pathogens could have been in it. But I think it's time to set out my own buckets.

 

[sharkweek178]

So here is my set up.


I have some buckets of water sitting in a somewhat shady area. Each bucket has a mesh bag with grass clippings and a piece of apple, along with a rock to weight it down.


I have another bucket with a lid that I cut a hole in.



This lid holds a large brine shrimp net in place.



Then I pour the contents of one of the buckets through the net.



And rinse the net in a bucket of clean fresh water.



After this, I use a turkey baster to sort out the wrigglers (and sometimes bloodworms).

The end result is this.




Plenty for my fish to eat and I froze the leftovers.

 

[MaloK]

Just 2 little questions:

How do you proceed to freeze them ? And, Do you sanitize them before ?

 

[sharkweek178]

Just 2 little questions:

How do you proceed to freeze them ? And, Do you sanitize them before ?

I poured what I didn't feed into a little brine shrimp net like this...



and then worked them into a dedicated silicon ice cube tray.

I don't sanitize them. My mosquito buckets don't have any fish in them. So I'm not worried about any pathogens.

 

[sharkweek178]

This method seems to be working for me. My buckets are producing a lot of larvae. More than previous years. But then I also put them out earlier so that might have something to do with it too.

Does anyone have any tips or tricks for getting more mosquito larvae? Or how to sort them out from all the junk that gets in the water?

 

[sharkweek178]

Quite the harvest today.



That's all mosquito larvae.

 

[sharkweek178]

Tbh, I froze most of them.

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

I have never tried this, but I'm going to try this summer. I haven't even seen a mosquito yet this year so I don't know if it's too early to try.
I'm assuming the basic idea is to grow green water in a still container to feed the mosquito larvae? Seems easy enough. Rain water is probably the best right?
Funny bit of trivia, up until 2 years ago, it was illegal to collect rainwater in West Virginia. Damn bassakwards state Rainwater...falls from the sky, it's free. For everyone.
Just so everyone doesn't worry I will be taking medical precautions by increasing my intake of Vodka and tonic. Because we all know tonic water contains quinine which prevents malaria. Better safe than sorry.

 

[sharkweek178]

I have never tried this, but I'm going to try this summer. I haven't even seen a mosquito yet this year so I don't know if it's too early to try.
I'm assuming the basic idea is to grow green water in a still container to feed the mosquito larvae? Seems easy enough. Rain water is probably the best right?
Funny but of trivia, up until 2 years ago, it was illegal to collect rainwater in West Virginia. Damn bassakwards state Rainwater...falls from the sky, it's free. For everyone.
Just so everyone doesn't worry I will be taking medical precautions by increasing my intake of Vodka and tonic. Because we all know tonic water contains quinine which prevents malaria. Better safe than sorry.

I just use dechlorinated tap water. Along with a mesh bag with some grass clipping and a piece of apple. Nature helps out. Things like leaves and dead bugs get in there. The water doesn't have to necessarily be green water. Just the bacteria those things help cultivate is enough.
And I think deer have been drinking out of them and getting some deer saliva in the buckets. I can't argue with the result.