Mosquito larvae

[Rusty_Shackleford49 165]

It's almost time for the 2026 mosquito season.
I've ben looking at Amazon to get some supplies ready.

 

[sharkweek178]

It's almost time for the 2026 mosquito season.
I've ben looking at Amazon to get some supplies ready.

Now that you mention it, I'll probably start next month.
The larvae I froze worked out really well. The fish liked them a lot.

 

[MuddyWaters]

I know mosquito larvae are great for fish but there is no way on God's green earth I'm going to cause- on purpose- more of those devil-spawn to appear.

 

[Innesfan48 10]

I know mosquito larvae are great for fish but there is no way on God's green earth I'm going to cause- on purpose- more of those devil-spawn to appear.

It's available in frozen form.

 

[sharkweek178]

I know mosquito larvae are great for fish but there is no way on God's green earth I'm going to cause- on purpose- more of those devil-spawn to appear.

Here's the thing. Mosquitoes are going to breed and lay eggs regardless of what we do. If they don't do it in one of my buckets, then they'll go somewhere else. At least this way, those larvae become fish food instead of growing into blood sucking adults.

 

[Rusty_Shackleford49 165]

My fish are going to feast today.

 

[CaptainBarnicles20 6]

My fish are going to feast today.
View attachment 381605

Om nom nom

 

[GaryE10 8]

I've been feeding them to fish for about two weeks now. Even with screens over the standing water here, they find a way in, and they breed like, well, like blood sucking demons tend to these days.

My goal is Daphnia, but they follow on later and aren't as good food as mosquito larvae. My measure is killie egg production, and mosquitoes really do the trick. I keep screens over the water to save the neighbours, and to save myself from the neighbours. There's a string of three small ponds/lakes very close by, so there's no stopping the local mosquitoes. When the sun goes down in summer, they appear in huge numbers.

 

[sharkweek178]

I started late this year. But my buckets have been really productive. And I still have 2 or 3 months to go.
There's a small pond in my yard. It's neglected. No fish. So I know there's larvae in there. I'm going to see what else I can find in there.

 

[sharkweek178]

I got a lot of mosquito larvae and some bloodworms. I froze them. I got excited because I thought I saw wild daphnia. But it turned out to be water mites. Still food for fish. But nothing I'd go out of my way for.

 

[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.
View attachment 367131

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

View attachment 367132

This lid holds a large brine shrimp net in place.

View attachment 367133

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

View attachment 367134

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

View attachment 367135

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

The end result is this.

View attachment 367136


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

So I had a somewhat unusual problem happen. I would go to check my buckets and the mesh bags world either be on the ground by then or completely missing. It's the local deer. They were trying to get to the apple pieces. Simple enough solution. I replaced the mesh bags and this time I just put grass clippings in them. No apple. The deer left them alone.
I might not even need to do that much. Leaves naturally get into the buckets and there's always a bunch of dead bugs. That itself is probably enough to get the bacteria and infusoria going. I still think the grass helps.
I don't even mind the deer drinking from the buckets. The saliva helps seed the water too.

 

[sharkweek178]

. There's a string of three small ponds/lakes very close by, so there's no stopping the local mosquitoes.

Life, uh, finds a way.

 

[sharkweek178]

This was yesterday's harvest. Pretty good, right? Problem is I found planaria in with them. Luckily, I sort through my harvests pretty thoroughly. But still though, I wasn't all that certain that I sorted out all of the planaria. But I didn't want to waste all these mosquito larvae. So I froze all of these ones. I've been doing that anyways to have a winter supply.
Today I thoroughly disinfected and rinsed my mosquito buckets to make sure no planaria or planaria eggs survived

 

[GaryE10 8]

It's been years since we had a summer with as many mosquitoes as this one. The bites. I'm one of those people they like to bite. I seem very attractive to them. I suppose I should appreciate that.

So the fish have been feeding well. The deer drink the water and the mosquitoes lay eggs in what's essentially a trap. I soak wood pieces in the cultures to sink them, and those just came out and went into tanks yesterday. I may dump out one bucket as I don't think I'll be able to keep up.

Much of our province is bordering on a drought, and fire bans are pretty widespread. About one dawn in three has that reddish haze we hate. But my small micro-region has had above average rainfall, and several days where the fog stayed thick all day. If I were a mosquito, this would be my summer of love. I'm sure some of that buzzing I hear at night is mosquitoes singing crappy nostalgia songs about their teenaged summers.

I haven't removed a single midge larvae (bloodworm) this year, and in last summer's drought, I could get a dozen in a net sweep.

Granted, I have a fishroom. But I don't know how many thousands of larvae go into the tanks every summer. Quite a few. I can harvest 100 or more daily with no effort. This year, I haven't been bitten once in the fishroom, and last year I only got a tiny number of itchy spots from out there. Walking the dog in the morning can leave me battling ravenous hordes. Fish really make short work of mosquito larvae, It has drawbacks, but for what I keep here, they really are the best food.

And that kind mother nature is bountiful with them....

 

[CaptainBarnicles20 6]

We've got no mozzies this summer, standing water is a rarity in this heatwave we're having