Harvesting Mosquito Larva

[Aquaben19]

We all know that live foods are good for our fish. Well, we had a rainstorm here where I live the other day. I was in my backyard doing regular maintenance when I happened upon one of my daughters toys. It had rain gathered in a little compartment, probably about 2 cups. I looked in the water and saw about 30 little wiggling things and I knew exactly what they were.

Well, I ran into my house and grabbed a little dish and an eye dropper and snagged up all of them I saw. But in the process I looked even closer and saw about 200 that I suppose just hatched. Thin little wiggling lines.

I then thought wow, free food. The juvies I have gobbled up the 30 or so "big" ones in about 2 seconds.

But here is what I am wondering. How does anyone that harvest mosquito larva do it? Obviously the tiny just hatched ones would be great for free swimmers and the bigger ones for growing fry... but as I write this I am wondering, is this just too much hassle? What do others that do this think? What is a better way? And obviously if you do this on a larger scale you actually impact the local environment... but on a small scale such as mine, if I harvest every day, I really dont think many if at all would make it to flying stage of life.

Any or all related input would be great.

[William Palumbo]

Hi Ben...When I was growing Mosquito larvae, I used a Brine shrimp net and netted them out. As you said, you will get all sizes, and the bigger, almost ready to hatch ones get eaten first. When I had my Killies, I would just take an egg raft and place float it in the tanks, and they hatch out VERY small, and the adult and new born Killies gobbled them up. My Discus spawned WELL being fed this food. Just make sure you stay on top of it, as you will be doing no one a favor by just letting them hatch and populate in the outside...Bill

[LizStreithorst]

Bill, It never occured to me to put an egg raft in a fry tank. What a good idea! I hatch mine in an old plastic tool box and just net them out with a regular fish net.

[Discus-n00b]

I use a turkey baster to suck them up. I actually put a bucket out just for the purpose of farming them. Yes, i TRY to get misquitos. Remember to wear bug spray so the adults won't get you while harvesting! But none on hands to contaminate the water!

I usually just go after the big ones, and in a day or 2 the smaller ones should be large enough to harvest. I work with 2 buckets and a fountain in our backyard. Kind of rotate my harvesting to get the big ones and let the smaller ones grow.

After I harvest them from my buckets I take them inside in a smaller dish/cup and use another cup to suck out just the larva trying to leave as much of the old outside nasty water behind as possible. Sometimes i get dirt and debris while harvesting. I do this a couple of times, transferring them back and forth from dish to dish (changing the water each time in the empty dish) until i am satisfied. Then I feed, and the discus go absolutely NUTS.

A brine shrimp net is a good idea. However since I don't have any youngins at this point, I just harvest the big larva.

[LizStreithorst]

I use a turkey baster to suck them up. I actually put a bucket out just for the purpose of farming them. Yes, i TRY to get misquitos. Remember to wear bug spray so the adults won't get you while harvesting! But none on hands to contaminate the water!

I usually just go after the big ones, and in a day or 2 the smaller ones should be large enough to harvest. I work with 2 buckets and a fountain in our backyard. Kind of rotate my harvesting to get the big ones and let the smaller ones grow.

After I harvest them from my buckets I take them inside in a smaller dish/cup and use another cup to suck out just the larva trying to leave as much of the old outside nasty water behind as possible. Sometimes i get dirt and debris while harvesting. I do this a couple of times, transferring them back and forth from dish to dish (changing the water each time in the empty dish) until i am satisfied. Then I feed, and the discus go absolutely NUTS.

A brine shrimp net is a good idea. However since I don't have any youngins at this point, I just harvest the big larva.

why not just use a fish net? They start going for the bottom as soon as they see you. With a fine fish net you can snag them before they disappear and avoid all the debris.

[mathao]

i harvest mine from an old tire that sits outside in the back yard, i use a regular net so that i only get the big ones.

[acroken]

i was feeding mosquito larva for awhile. i used some keg tubs i had around. rain would fill them. i had some mesh fabric around. bent a piece of wire a little smaller then then the tub bottom and wrapped the fabric over it. used the extra wire to make two handles. drop the fabric wrapped wire to the bottom and threw hay on top of the water. 2 x a week i would lift off the hay and quickly pull the wire loop out from the bottom. this would catch just about all of them. the fabric was over sized enough to create a sage in the middle when water and debris was caught in it. I would put a window type screen over a bucket and back rinse the fabric into the bucket. pretty much all that was in the bucket now was mosquito of all sizes. Then i would dump the remains of what was on the screens back into the tubs and trow in the fabric loop and the hay back on. this was good years ago before so much was available to me. it is a bit of work but had good success breeding with this food. I would not try and separate the larva to feed to different sized discus, just my pairs. you could do it easy enough with a sift screen though. I do not care to spend this amount of time raising food. If i was to do it now it would be on a larger scale to be able to raise enough to make the time worth it.

Kenny

[Bilbo_wh]

My method is using 2ltr white containers like ice-cream tubs. Put clean rainwater in it with a piece of watermelon rind inside a stocking.

After 2 days I put the lid on the container and in another 2 days I take out the stocking with the watermelon rind and pour the whole lot through a fine net.

I usually save the water and recycle it into the next culture (doing my bit)

This way I have a maximum of 4 day old larvae and a minimum of 2 days old.

If you forget and leave it for 3 or 4 days with lid on have fly spray handy. White containers seem to work better but I don't know why.

[JL15219]

I am just wondering does it have to be rain water?

[acroken]

to me it seemed to work better with rain water then tap. Maybe the larva do not handle chlorine or the other chemicals our water companies add to our drinking water. i have not experimented with raising them up in a long time but from what i remember i did not have much luck in tap.

HTH
Kenny