Mosquito larva as fry food.
May 31, 2016 9:21:47 GMT -6
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rainbowbratt, Mark~N, and 1 more like this
Post by dave pauls on May 31, 2016 9:21:47 GMT -6
Hatching mosquito larva for your fry. I've been doing this for a few years and it works really well. It's a perfect food source and it's free... And if you do it this way it leaves no possibility for the larva to mature.
1. Take a bucket and put a few inches of water in the bottom. Add some scuzzy things like grass clippings or leaves or in my case some chicken manure. Put it in a warm sunny spot where you have noticed some mosquitoes. Try long grass or cedar bushes. I live in the forest so they are everywhere. Lol.
2. Check every day for egg rafts. This is important because you don't want to give them time to hatch in the bucket or you will be growing mosquitoes instead of fish food. I use a small container and sink it right beside the raft and it floats on in. I then use a tea spoon to remove the raft and put it in a little vial. You can put lots of rafts in each vial.
If you miss a few days and you notice larva in the bucket, dump it and start over. Its not advisable to let any of them grow.
3. Set them on top of a tank for a couple days. They usually take 2 to 3 days to hatch. I start a new vial every day so I have a constant supply.
4. Suck the newly hatched larva out and feed them to your fry. The larva are just under 1mm when they hatch so they are good for rainbows that are a couple weeks past eating bbs. Maybe 3 weeks old and older?
The advantage is that the larva can live in the water indefinitely and the fish absolutely love them. You need to make sure the fry are big enough to eat them though or the larva will out pace the fry and turn into mosquitoes... Something my wife does not approve of.
The other plus with this is that you are removing the mosquitoes from your area. By taking the eggs, none of the larva reach maturity.
1. Take a bucket and put a few inches of water in the bottom. Add some scuzzy things like grass clippings or leaves or in my case some chicken manure. Put it in a warm sunny spot where you have noticed some mosquitoes. Try long grass or cedar bushes. I live in the forest so they are everywhere. Lol.
2. Check every day for egg rafts. This is important because you don't want to give them time to hatch in the bucket or you will be growing mosquitoes instead of fish food. I use a small container and sink it right beside the raft and it floats on in. I then use a tea spoon to remove the raft and put it in a little vial. You can put lots of rafts in each vial.
If you miss a few days and you notice larva in the bucket, dump it and start over. Its not advisable to let any of them grow.
3. Set them on top of a tank for a couple days. They usually take 2 to 3 days to hatch. I start a new vial every day so I have a constant supply.
4. Suck the newly hatched larva out and feed them to your fry. The larva are just under 1mm when they hatch so they are good for rainbows that are a couple weeks past eating bbs. Maybe 3 weeks old and older?
The advantage is that the larva can live in the water indefinitely and the fish absolutely love them. You need to make sure the fry are big enough to eat them though or the larva will out pace the fry and turn into mosquitoes... Something my wife does not approve of.
The other plus with this is that you are removing the mosquitoes from your area. By taking the eggs, none of the larva reach maturity.
