Which is better, getting rid of *all* the standing water? Or leaving one bucket full of stagnant water under a tree (to lure them to one place) and putting one of those "mosquito dunks" in it?
I think I'm gonna try the latter this year.
I dumped out some little flower pots this afternoon and they were full of wigglers already.
Bob
Even better, put a rosy red minnow or goldfish in the bucket. Much lower cost than those bacteria dunks. Water green with algae works best.
A couple of years ago, I had a huge flower pot full of water with a lotus seedling in it and a few minnows. The lotus never bloomed, but it did look pretty with it's big leaves that danced in the rain, and the minnows seemed happy.
I was gonna plant a lotus seed last winter to try to get it going early enough to bloom but I never got a round tuit. (I still have the lotus seeds, and they keep pretty well.)
Bob
Like she said, it's cruel to put a fish in stagnant water. How do minnows "seem" happy? That is such a myth an extremely cruel.
It wasn't stagnant, it had plants growing in it to keep it oxygenated. And my dog drank out of it, so I had to keep topping it up with fresh water. So maybe it wasn't very attractive to skeeters after all, I dunno.
If the fish are distressed by low oxygen levels, they stay very near the surface, move slowly, kind of gasp at the surface, and they have worried looks on their faces. (OK, I made that very last part up)
Bob
That actually sounds like a good idea. Did the fish actually eat the misquitos or larvae? And how long did they live? I have a small pond I've been thinking of putting some small fish in. I can't put bigger fish, like goldfish, because the racoons eat them.
There were no mosquito larvae; I don't know if the minnows ate them, or if the mosquitoes didn't find it attractive and they stayed away. This was about the size of a half a whiskey barrel. IIRC the minnows survived until the water surface froze in the late fall. They were still alive then until I fed them to the cat ;-) (life itself is cruel)
They ought to do really well in a small pond, perhaps even surviving the winter, depending on where you are.
Bob
Check with your local vector control agency. Some of them give away free fish that will eat mosquito larvae. For example:
Patty
Look around for ads in "small" newspapers that: "...the FISHMAN IS COMING -- CATFISH, BASS....." They usually have a baitfish called a fathead minnow. I dump a few hundred in my main pond in the spring and fall. I have small ponds (puddles) scattered around my place for the deer, turkey, and other critters that I have thrown fatheads into. ]no -- not Billy -- ;) ] They seem to survive the puddles being frozen over and reproduce like bacteria, providing me food for the bass.
And, yes; they gobble skeeters.......and anything else they can catch.
cheers
oz
As if an devoteé of Dixy Ray Lee could recognize a fat head without being overwhelmed with humiliation, but as the saying goes, "Don't matter what they say about you ... as long as they spell your name right."
Two lemon cucumbers, six tromboncini, and eight leeks planted today. Damn raccoon is giving me kidney cramps. Gotta drink more beer. I have this ominous apprehension of looking into container where the forgotten compost/manure tea resides. If I remember correctly, Charlie said to spread it along the boundry with my rottenest neighbors.
"Dance for me without your fan", said Billy Rose, to Sally Rand, and so she did, and Billy rose, and Sally ran.
maybe a betta? they don't mind little stagnant puddles, according to the experts.
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