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Mosquitoes in emersed tanks

ExcitableBoy

Member
Joined
16 Jan 2016
Messages
46
Location
Milan, Italy
Hi,
I have three emersed tanks (60x30 cm each one). I don't know if they can be considered as paludariums, I just want to have my own "high light plants farm" and also in 2 or 3 months depending on my pocket I will start a high tech planted tank in which have fun with the spp I am growing emersed.
Anyway, in these tanks the water is still and the water column is 2 inch / 5 cm high or thereabouts. Here we go, after a couple of weeks one of them has some mosquitoes larvae in the water, and probably there will be in the others too sooner or later.
I don't know if there are chemicals that I could add and being 100% they will not hurt plants and the entire "ecosystem". I could add some of those small USB water pumps, but these tanks are so densely planted that I think the mosquitoes will manage to find a proper still zoneffor the larvae. So I was thinking to add a predator in every tank. The only one small enough I thought is Betta splendens, they could easily survive in these still waters considering they are anabantidae. I would avoid the males because they have often quite long fins, too long for the water column. So I would go for a female in each tank. When the mosquitoes season ends, I will put them all together either in the high tech planted tank or in a small low tech planted tank if there will be too much flow.
What do you think?
(of course I am not going to add other inverts to the emersed tanks anymore)
 
There is a product I've seen people use in outdoor tubs with fish/plants (and I think even shrimp) but I can't remember the name. Might be on some of the summer tubbing youtube videos.
 
I think you are talking about mosquito dunks, they are made of BTI bacteria wiki and they shouldn't be a problem for plants and other inverts, maybe for a few insects but I don't care that's fine. I have managed to find them here in Italy, the ones by Summit. I will try them soon and let you know. Thanks!
 
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A little update. Since the dunks took a little to arrive, yesterday I decided to do a waterchange which removed most of the larvae. Today the dunks has arrived, tbh I thought it was a pack of 12 dunks, instead it contained only two of them.
These are the rates recommended by the producer:
1/4 Dunk for 1 to 5 square ft.
1/2 for 5 to 25 square ft.
1 for 25 to 100 square ft.
1 every 100 square ft
They should last for at least 30 days, depending on rain, waterchange in my case, maybe temperature I guess. Let's see.
I was thinking to reduce the dose or even dose them only when I see the larvae since they are quite pricey here in Italy, 22 € for two dunks, now 32 €. I should buy bigger packages or maybe check the price during the cold seasons to spend less for each dunk.
Anyway I have chosen to put 1/4 Dunk as the producer suggested. 1/4 Dunk in every tank larvae or not, because I have seen this afternoon a tiger mosquito laying eggs in another tank. ^^"
I will update this thread again
 
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