Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help Mosquitos

Doggone things!!!

I have a 1/4 acre pond stocked with freshwater shrimp. The pond is aerated (Koenders windmill) but I am having some of the little blood sucking buggers appear.

Is there anything I can use that isn't deadly to shrimp?

This was told to me by a biologist but I have never confirmed it.

As you increase the movement of the surface water the less mosquitoes you will have. The larvae drown in rough water. They live below the surface but need to breathe air.

Personally I have enough of a fish population to help consume them. If you only have the shrimp I don't know what would happen.

I know this isn't much help but I thought I would try. Hopefully you can get some more informative responses.

We don't even try to control them here. Even with Off spray I can have 10-20 of them on my arms alone in the evenings at one time. I am very used to them. It is obvious though that they are coming from the wetlands and not the pond.

Do you have any bats in the area? If you do you can build some bat houses near you pond and they will generally attract bats in the area and 1 bat can eat an extremley large amount of bugs in an hours time. I am getting ready to build a couple of new bat homes as the bats have seemed to dissapear since their old home was destroyed in a storm. Just a thought for ya. Heres a link to a great site on bat homes and attracting bats.
http://www.batcon.org/bhra/economyhouse.html

Another thought, would misquito fish mess with your shrimp any? I believe they stay relativley small and die off as it gets cold.

The only problem with the bats is like last night around my pond. I had a willow fly hatch and there must have been 50-75 bats flying around. A couple whizzed by my head as I was sitting on the dock catfishing about 2 ft away! Talk about a big mosquito.

Bob

Depending on the size of your stocker shrimp, or if you're rearing shrimp from the cradle, Gambusia (aka "mosquito fish") may pose more negatives than benefit. See Gambusia Control for details.

Unless you can verify that the mosquito larvae are living in and emerging from your pond, it is a safe assumption that they're coming from adjacent water puddles. There is a mosquito larvicide call "Mosquito Dunks" (a BT "Bacillus Thuringensis" biological control agent) that may be used to treat standing puddles of water ( Mosquito Dunks ). I'm not certain if you can/should use them directly in your shrimp pond.

Thanks, folks.

Rest assured the critters are coming from the pond as there is absolutely NO water anywhere else. My guess is the wind aerator isn't moving the water enough.

Well, thanks for the replies anyways!!

Dragon flys eat lots of mosquitos. Don't know how to encourage dragon flys though.