Hello fellow permies. Long time no type. I have recently put in a small garden pond, it's a blue clam shaped paddling pool, i scored it from scouting round the 'kerb side clearence' suburbs. I covered it with some plastic trellis to keep out cane toads. Anyway it was all going very nicely, kan kong and watercress goin off and a bit of azola (s.p?) for mulch/compst and even a beutiful native frog that has now left loads of tadpoles after singing happily the last few nights. But as I went to check on me taddies and top up the pond a bit, I got attacked by a million mozzies! When I looked in the pond there was also the larvae too. I met an old fella in Byron once who had what he called 'mozzie fish' in his pond, he told me they were introduced by the yanks in the war for exactly that purpose. Would any of you lovely people have any suggestions please?
Cheers for that link Corny! I'm up for goin out tonight hunting for some Morph's, the only thing is I'm a bit worried about my young taddies. You reckon the Morph's will munch them or what?
Guppies work a treat too and if you keep the black ones culled you can always sell the offspring. floot
There was a thread in here before about this by Peter Clements, on "guppy culture", which, while not being a pond, was designed around small containers that were filled with water to house guppies. Mossies would lay their eggs in the containers and the guppies would eat them, breaking the breeding cycle, reducing the anopheles mosquito population, which is the vector for malaria. If you could raise guppies in your pond, you could break the mossie cycle....
Hi Permanut, I've just put White Cloud Mountain minnows in my pond to eat the mosquito larvae. They only cost me a couple of dollars each from my local pet store. Scott.
Permanut, Way to go. I used guppies [and neon tetras, mollies etc ] 'cos they live in outdoor pools here and I am a long way from a river. I am also a long way from a fish farm. I have also stocked local natives but they dont seem too interested in mosquito larvae. Anyone else found this? floot
Thanks very much fellow permies for your imput and support. I ended up settling for the beutiful Pacific Blue Eyes, five of them at $2.95 each!! So I might see if I can sell some back to recoup my losses if they breed alright. Anyhow when I introduced them to they're new home I observed them flitting about happily and inquistivley nipping on larvae for a while but not actually eating them.The next day I got all exited and went and got some Azola, Duckweed and somthing else... and now I ca'nt see the little buggers anywhere for the bloody plants, so much for obsevation! I can report that the taddpoles are doing well,there are stil heaps and I can just see where the arms and leggs are forming. I can only hope that the fish have found the hide out I built for them and are chilling out in there when I come looking. I wish all of you permie people a Happy Solstice. Peace and Love.
Most mozzies do not eat people There are only a few that eat us. The rest provide food for frogs, fish etc Generally they are given a bum rap Florida has an air-force bigger than the OZ RAAF just to spay the state with pesticide so the tourists don't get bitten by mozzies (bad for business). Look at the Thread on "Low Tec mosquito killing machine" (?) somewhere here
Do you have any local frog? If you tell them nicely you have a good mozzie snack for them, they'll hop on over. Yum
i've just bought my third lot of blue eyes the first lot got eaten within 10 minutes of me putting them in my pond: I went inside, then came out to a butcher bird grinning at me. I then put some coarse mesh (~60 x 60mm holes) over it and bought three more blue eyes.. I checked the next day.. no more fish, and the butcher bird was still very interested in the pond :-( Since then, I have added some fine bird mesh (~10mm) - it is not 100% coverage since I want some small holes for birds to drink from etc. plus larger fish can go up and down (the mesh is just below the water surface) I just thought I'd share the story, to indicat that if you can't see them they might have been eaten .. I just hope both of our fish don't get eaten
I go and catch the little feral fish in my local, toxic, waterway. It's free!! The frogs breed along side them just fine.