Re: NANFA-- Harvesting Mosquito Larvae Question & nets

unclescott (unclescott_at_prodigy.net)
Wed, 18 Jun 2003 21:36:19 -0500

> You could also just collect the rafts and save them. Then, just pop in a
raft in a tank. The fish will eat the larvae as they hatch. Hopefully, none
will mature into adults. But, keep those tanks covered with fine netting.

Actually too often the fish eat the egg raft. An egg raft in with the small
fry is a great way to leave them for the weekend though. Don't have any
snails in there though.

Monitor the tank. Any not eater in two or three days should be removed with
a turkey baster (if possible) and housed with somebody with a hungry
attitude.

Wright Huntley once observed a very large mosquito larvae taking a very
young Betta fry. The old "if it can fit in it's mouth, it will" rule
applies.

(There evidentally are mosquito species where their larvae eat other smaller
mosquito larvae.)

Mossies newly hatched are great for small fry with mouths too tiny for newly
hatched brine shrimp. That includes some ostensibly pretty good sized fry
sometimes.

> One thing that I remember is that the larvae sink when the water is
disturbed. Now, all you would need to do is
disturb the water and drain some water from the bottom to collect the max
number of larvae. It would help to have a spigot on the side of the tub. If
you setup brine-shrimp
cone hatchers to collect mosquito eggs, then you could just drain the
larvae from the bottom. Just sharing an idea.
You might have to drain a lot of water. I wish all of my food culture
containers came with such a spigot. I used to grow stuff in tanks and what
not on skids because siphoning was easier.

A fine meshed net - get the widest you can comfortably use - would work the
best. Mark can find these at Jonah's. ;)

By the way, those fine meshed nets are much easier on spiny fishes such as
sunfish and catfish. They don't get anywhere as tangled up as with the
regular aquarium nets. Just don't expect the fine mesh nets to last forever
:)

All the best!

Scott
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