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Mosquito Larvae


Jenna

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Looking at a bucket outside my greenhouse, there are a couple of inches of what looks like mosquito larvae infested water.

Would my community fish love these? If so, is it a simple matter of scooping them out with a net and dropping them into the tank?

Would love to know if there's a treat outside for the fishies, before they grow up and bite me! :o

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haha, ahhh ok I see....

How about this - I'll try them on the mozzies, and I'll share what they don't want evenly amongst anyone who wants them.

...... oops sorry - none left, greedy fishies!

*sigh* maybe next time :lol:

Thanks for the advice - I always love to find new things to feed them, and now I have some very happy, mosquito filled mollies here!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have a large plastic bin outside that is filled with rain water and 100,000's of mosquito larvae.

I am always nervous about what other poisons or diseases could be in the water :oops: so to harvest the larvae I take a funnel with filter paper ( or even a piece of cleaned filter floss ) and seperate the larvae from the water, quickly put them into a bucket of aquarium water and pour that into the tanks.

Just to be on the safe side.... :wink:

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You are HIGHLY unlikely to transfer disease from a fishless body of water to a fishy one. Any that would transfer are probably in most waterbodies anyway (including your tank) and only affect the fish when their immune systems are down.

Poisons..... well, if this is your backyard you should know what is going on in it. If you worry about stuff from the atmosphere, time and again the air inside houses has been shown to be much more polluted by various agents than outside.

The only nasty I can think of that could be transferred in hydra, but usually (I think) they are found with aquatic plants, so unlikely to be in a plantless tub (confirmation please?)

Personally I run it through a fine sieve so I am not putting dirty water into my tanks. Similar method, different reason ;)

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Mosquito larvae are very high in protein and fibre low in fat, they are an awesome food, I scoop a bin i have in the back yard every 2 days with a coarse net and get the big ones while the tiddlers grow out some more. I have some floating plants in the bin so the adult mozzies can lay their eggs easily.

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LOL it's quite funny that here we are trying to grow mozzies... in most of the rest of the world you would be arrested for deliberately leaving standing water out for mozzies! We're so lucky we don't have malaria, dengue fever, that nasty nile virus etc.

When I was in Malaysia a few years ago there were patrols that would come and do spot-checks on people's back yards. If they found any standing water (in old tyres, pot plant saucers, etc.) you could be arrested and face some pretty heavy penalties.

Makes me a bit nervous about global warming though... how long before we get our first case of malaria?! :o

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Soon after we get the anopheles mosquito, the adult female of which is the vector. There will be people in NZ with malaria that they have contracted overseas but no vector at present to transmit it person to person. Regular checks are carried out around International airports and ports for introduced mossies.

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Makes me a bit nervous about global warming though... how long before we get our first case of malaria?! :o

....amongst other things!

A friend of mine got malaria when he was overseas. The symptoms only set in once he got home. Of course the hospital (army and public) had very little idea of what to do with him.

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Soon after we get the anopheles mosquito, the adult female of which is the vector. There will be people in NZ with malaria that they have contracted overseas but no vector at present to transmit it person to person. Regular checks are carried out around International airports and ports for introduced mossies.

One of the tasks I'm involved in is the weekly mossie checks. The surveillance program checks sites up to 4 km away from the terminal looking for foreign vectors and breeding sites. Some of these vectors travel only 400m in their life time.

Murray Valley encephalitis and Ross River virus, have vectors present in NZ as does Yellow Fever and Dengue Fever. But the chances of someone coming into the country with one of those diseases and being bitten by a mossie that then goes on to bite someone else (i.e. you) is very low.

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LOL it's quite funny that here we are trying to grow mozzies... in most of the rest of the world you would be arrested for deliberately leaving standing water out for mozzies! We're so lucky we don't have malaria, dengue fever, that nasty nile virus etc.

When I was in Malaysia a few years ago there were patrols that would come and do spot-checks on people's back yards. If they found any standing water (in old tyres, pot plant saucers, etc.) you could be arrested and face some pretty heavy penalties.

Makes me a bit nervous about global warming though... how long before we get our first case of malaria?! :o

If I was living in Malaysia, Id be locked up for life. My neighbours must hate me, with all my mossies i grow.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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