Mosquito larvae

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It must be pandemonium when you dump that much mosquito larvae in the aquarium .

 

[Colin_T]

Mozzie larvae tend to hang at the surface so you just use a fine mesh fish net to scoop them up. Wait a few minutes for them to come back up and scoop again. Stick them in ice block trays and freeze to use later on.

 

[sharkweek178]

It must be pandemonium when you dump that much mosquito larvae in the aquarium .

Oh I wouldn't feed all the ones pictured at once. That's way too many for my fish. I'm freezing what I don't feed immediately to have a supply throughout the year. Feeding frozen won't be as much fun as watching them chase the live ones though.

 

[GaryE]

I use 20 gallon tubs, since I have a dry ditch behind my fishroom. 4 tubs sit in there.
My main thing is daphnia, but even with my screened cultures, some mosquitoes find a way. I'm 2km from a salt marsh, and 1 km from a fishless freshwater pond of about an acre in size, so I have mosquitoes. If I remove the lid on one culture, I get lots. I don't, out of respect for my neighbours, but with net sweeps for daphnia, I usually harvest 50-100 from two tubs (I never harvest all four tubs).

Each tub gets 2 litres of thick green water daily.

Sometimes, deer or raccoons push the lids off the cultures, and even in a few hours, I get mosquitoes galore. I was away this weekend and one of the cultures was opened, so in very little time my Epiplatys pike killies will be happy campers. You can't neglect these cultures....

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

Dang it I mowed the yard today and was planning on starting a couple cultures in some 5 gallon buckets. But it poured just as I was getting done and there goes my fresh glass clippings.

 

[sharkweek178]

Dang it I mowed the yard today and was planning on starting a couple cultures in some 5 gallon buckets. But it poured just as I was getting done and there goes my fresh glass clippings.

It doesn't have to be from mowing the lawn. Just pull some grass out and put it in a mesh bag.
You don't even have to seed the water with grass. Some people use cut up pieces of apple or a banana peel. I've heard of people using milk. That makes the water a little to gunky IMO. There are lots of ways to try and see what works best for you.

 

[sharkweek178]

I use 20 gallon tubs, since I have a dry ditch behind my fishroom. 4 tubs sit in there.
My main thing is daphnia, but even with my screened cultures, some mosquitoes find a way. I'm 2km from a salt marsh, and 1 km from a fishless freshwater pond of about an acre in size, so I have mosquitoes. If I remove the lid on one culture, I get lots. I don't, out of respect for my neighbours, but with net sweeps for daphnia, I usually harvest 50-100 from two tubs (I never harvest all four tubs).

Each tub gets 2 litres of thick green water daily.

Sometimes, deer or raccoons push the lids off the cultures, and even in a few hours, I get mosquitoes galore. I was away this weekend and one of the cultures was opened, so in very little time my Epiplatys pike killies will be happy campers. You can't neglect these cultures....

Speaking of, I have to harvest again already. Which is fine. My plan this year is to freeze enough to have a steady supply in the non mosquito months.

 

[sharkweek178]

I use 20 gallon tubs, since I have a dry ditch behind my fishroom. 4 tubs sit in there.
My main thing is daphnia, but even with my screened cultures, some mosquitoes find a way. I'm 2km from a salt marsh, and 1 km from a fishless freshwater pond of about an acre in size, so I have mosquitoes. If I remove the lid on one culture, I get lots. I don't, out of respect for my neighbours, but with net sweeps for daphnia, I usually harvest 50-100 from two tubs (I never harvest all four tubs).

Each tub gets 2 litres of thick green water daily.

Sometimes, deer or raccoons push the lids off the cultures, and even in a few hours, I get mosquitoes galore. I was away this weekend and one of the cultures was opened, so in very little time my Epiplatys pike killies will be happy campers. You can't neglect these cultures....

Oddly enough, something has been pulling the mesh bags with the grass clippings and apple out of my buckets. I just find them on the ground by the buckets. I thought at first it was some of the kids around here. But they denied it. And I can't think of any reason a person would do this. If some stranger was going to mess with them, they'd just knock them over and dump them out. I think now it's an animal. We have plenty of deer and raccoons around here. Maybe I'll put up a trail cam nearby.

 

[GaryE]

Water is as attractive them as it is to us - and apples? The local hunters bait the deer by dumping apples in the spots where they want to kill them.
I used to have more effective and complex lids on the cultures, but raccoons put in the effort to open them, by breaking them. To save the trouble, I now just have weighted screens. I know when I face defeat and need to make a strategic, face saving retreat.

The one time I went to Pittsburgh, I saw an exotic animal I had never seen prior - an opossum. They don't have pretty faces, but I wouldn't think they'd get into mosquito cultures.

 

[Uberhoust]

I am concerned that I don't have any mosquito larva, or extremely limited number, in the one water plant container that doesn't have fish in it. Normally I can scoop out a couple of netfuls a week but this year I have gotten hardly any. I am not worried about the fish but the fact we have considerably fewer flying insects even though we live within 700 meters of a largish wetland area.

 

[sharkweek178]

Water is as attractive them as it is to us - and apples? The local hunters bait the deer by dumping apples in the spots where they want to kill them.
I used to have more effective and complex lids on the cultures, but raccoons put in the effort to open them, by breaking them. To save the trouble, I now just have weighted screens. I know when I face defeat and need to make a strategic, face saving retreat.

The one time I went to Pittsburgh, I saw an exotic animal I had never seen prior - an opossum. They don't have pretty faces, but I wouldn't think they'd get into mosquito cultures.

We have them around here. I haven't seen one in years. But they're pretty reclusive so that's not unusual. Their faces aren't the worst part of them. It's those rat like tails.

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

It's gonna pour the rain in about 15 mins and I've set out 2, 5 gallon buckets to collect water and I mowed today and saved some grass clippings. Let's go 'squitos!!

 

[sharkweek178]

Got some bloodworms in today's harvest. Bonus! I've gotten them before but they were white or green. These are nice red ones. If you want to encourage bloodworms then add some leaf litter

 

[sharkweek178]

Disaster happened this past weekend.
After getting something out of the freezer, my ADHD brain forgot to close my freezer door. So it was open for a few hours. All my frozen fish food and the mosquito larvae that I had collected thawed. I don't care as much about the frozen food. I can just buy more of that. I'm super annoyed that I lost the larvae. I have to fix that fridge so this doesn't happen again.

 

[Rusty_Shackleford]

Disaster happened this past weekend.
After getting something out of the freezer, my ADHD brain forgot to close my freezer door. So it was open for a few hours. All my frozen fish food and the mosquito larvae that I had collected thawed. I don't care as much about the frozen food. I can just buy more of that. I'm super annoyed that I lost the larvae. I have to fix that fridge so this doesn't happen again.

It's a bummer but you can always culture more and it still pretty early to make up for what you lost.
Don't feel too bad, last night my wife made an awesome dinner of shrimp and tortellini in homemade Alfredo sauce. She then proceeded to drop her plate in her lap.