Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Good ponds and mosquito control

Last fall I visited a pond site for a person I know. She stated that the recent West Nile scare had prompted her neighbors to drain the association pond that they live on. What I saw was amazing! The site on which the drained pond had been had become a marshland with hundreds of pockets of one to four inch deep water. It seemed to me that with the intention of decreasing mosquito habitat that the exact opposite effect had been the result.

In researching this topic I found the following contention.

"Well managed and well designed ponds do not contribute to mosquito production. The open areas of a well designed pond is poor habitat for mosquito reproduction due to surface agitation and the shallow areas of a pond with a healthy well balanced fish population may actually decrease mosquito production because they tempt mosquitos to lay their eggs and insure their imminent demise because of the waiting hungry young fish".

I'd really like to hear a comment or two from forum members to hear if they agree or disagree with this theory that ponds DECREASE mosquito production. I would also gratefully welcome any personal experience from forum members. Tomorrow night the association will be meeting and I will be attending. I may use some of the posts in my discussion.

Thanks alot to all of you!

Bruce

Bruce,

We have voracious little preditors, gambusia and grass shrimp in the ponds in my area. They totally wipe out mosquito eggs and larvae. I'm sure you have them too, or similar predators. I'm sure that far more mosquitoes hatch from tires, inflatable wading pools, and 5 gallon buckets than from recreational ponds.

You should strongly recommend that the pond be restored. Don't make me go up there!

Bruce, our 43 acre farm is on soil with lots of clay. It drains very poorly. The front 2/3 of it had drainage tile installed long ago to make it dryer/firmer for farming. The back 1/3, mostly woods, was not tiled.

Before our pond went in (our first 15 years here), you could not go to the back of the farm in the Summer - the mosquitos would eat you alive. There were little pockets of water sitting in the heavy clay soil all through the woods which they bred in.

The pond is roughly in the middle of the farm. Since it went in, the number of mosquitos in the woods has noticeably decreased. Even though the pond is closer to the woods than the house, as you go from the house to the pond the number of mosquitos drops way down.

I fished for an hour after dark last night; I heard ONE mosquito while at the pond. I spent 20 minutes cleaning fish outside the garage afterwards, during which time I got 5-6 mosquito bites.

In my mind there is no question that a fish-filled pond is a "black hole" for mosquitos. Our pond is the most bug-free place (night and day) on our farm. We put a few small fish from the pond in the horse and cattle watering troughs to eat the mosquito larvae there.

3 years ago when I was building my shop I had a leak in my drip line that waters my trees. During the cement pouring process the truck got stuck and left some nice holes full of water. Needless to say, this area was a haven for mosquitoes and around my pond seems to always be free of mosquitoes.

Who was the brain that come up with this? Why don't they fallow the facts. I have yet to read anything about draining ponds maybe draining marshland like they created. I would suggest restoring the pond, taking care of things that have been pr oven to work like old tires and buckets, and look into maybe building some bat houses.

Bruce,

Our place is in East Texas, 60 inch annual rainfalls, mild winters, tropic summers. The least likely place to get mosquito bitten is at one of the ponds. BOBAD nailed it when he talked about the Gambusia, BG, etc and also the swallows who cruise the ponds. Honestly, we just don't have mosquitoes around the ponds..elsewhere yes.

I had to laugh at a post here not long ago that was asking for the best chemical to control mosquitoes around a pond...answer fish!

BCF:

That would be the "Mosquito Grande."

Does bleach kill mesquito larva?

There is a drainage ditch near my house,we recently just had a very large storm, well there is about a foot of standing water along with large 6 -12 inch diameter rocks. I saw thousands of mesq. larvey just twitching away..

The draining is about a 8x8 puddle. I poured about 24 ounces of bleach all around. You will think I am crazy but then I sprayed raid on top of the balls of larva in the water. Well, I had another bright idea after that, I went to my local watering hole and caught about 15 greenies. Then threw them in...well needless to say they didn't last long. I didn't get the whole watering hole with bleach so I thought if I put them in the other side they would at least thrive a day or 2..nope.

So anyways, I came back the next day and didn't see any babies twitching, I don't know if they have hatched or died, I can't see them on the bottom either.
Also the misquitos babies shared this hole with tadpoles. I thought they would go belly up as well with the misquitos but they seem quite happy with the bleach in the water. It has been almost 2 days and they are still just swimming away.
I am figuring if they lived then maybe the larva did as well...

BRUCE I had a area where I bulit my pond that held yard run off water that was just couple inches deep, and before building pond you couldn't sit out in yard without getting ate alive by mosquitoes.After the pond was built we noticed we can sit anywhere around yard in summer and on dock and we never get bite. When we were first talking about building pond a friend would always say,(you are really going to have a problem with mosquitoes if you build a pond, now he says he never gets bite when he is fishing the pond at night.
PO

I have 4 or 5 old, mostly silted in ponds. After rains, they hold water and mosquitos for awhile. On the larger ones, I trap small bluegills and add to them. Before long, no mosquito problems. I think most mosquito problems around ponds come from low areas that hold water for a couple of weeks. Then the mosquitos go into the vegetation and live their short lives. They are a temporary problem. I get most of my mosquito bites in town and 100% of my chigger and tick bites in the country.

Mosquitos can ALWAYS be traced to stagnant waters lacking in natural predators.

Healthy ponds with bluegill populations on my property don't ever have any mosquitos nearby.