Green Mosquito Control | Page 1 | General Discussion | Guild Forums

Vanilla eXee

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Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 11:46 am

I have a pond in my backyard that I plan on using to house axolotls. However, axolotls are expensive if you can find them at a pet shop (which you usually don't). They're cheap if you buy them from a breeder online, but shipping is expensive. So I am not getting them until I can afford to build a cover for the pond so they don't get eaten. Meantime, my pond is filled with mosquito larvae!!!! My solution: I e-mailed my local mosquito control and they brought some "mosquitofish" (gambusia affinis). This is a much better option than putting chemicals in my pond. A lot of people use these guys for any areas they have with standing water to keep the mosquito population at bay. I wrote an article about them for examiner.com

But keeping them from breeding in your pond isn't going to eliminate mosquitoes altogether. Please share your tips for green mosquito control here, and I'll add them to the first post so we can have a handy list going on how to protect ourselves and your loved ones from mosquito born diseases this summer!

The List
- Empty all non-necessary water sources
- For wet areas that won't be emptied small native fish will eat larvae
- Bees eat mosquitoes, beekeeping is a wonderful option
- Encourage bats with bathouses
- Wild birds or fowl may eat mosquitoes, but they can also be bit and transfer disease to you that way
- Lemon Balm or vinegar rubbed on the skin will ward them off
- Citronella candles
- Plant citronella (scented geranium), lemon grass, garlic, juniper, lemon eucalyptus, marigolds, and cedar

Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 8:32 pm

Super neat! I plan on keeping bees once I get my own house (apartment living isn't condusive, lol), and the bf wants a little pond of fish, which is a perfect water source for the bees. I was worried about mosquitoes, though. In general, of course, and in specific, because they seem to EAT ME TO DEATH to the point that all summer I have to cover myself in spray every day if I go out, or I end up getting 5-10 new bites. D;

Something more natural that would work is vinegar. If you don't mind the smell (and once it dries it's not too bad)- spray yourself down with it, and they will mostly leave you alone without nasty chemicals. I use regular white vinegar. I forget from last summer if I halved it with water or not.

noramine

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Vanilla eXee

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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2011 8:41 pm

noramine

Super neat! I plan on keeping bees once I get my own house (apartment living isn't condusive, lol), and the bf wants a little pond of fish, which is a perfect water source for the bees. I was worried about mosquitoes, though. In general, of course, and in specific, because they seem to EAT ME TO DEATH to the point that all summer I have to cover myself in spray every day if I go out, or I end up getting 5-10 new bites. D;

Something more natural that would work is vinegar. If you don't mind the smell (and once it dries it's not too bad)- spray yourself down with it, and they will mostly leave you alone without nasty chemicals. I use regular white vinegar. I forget from last summer if I halved it with water or not.

Oh, beekeeping! That is so awesome. I always wanted to try that comb honey wax stuff. We're gonna get chickens hopefully soon, and I think they'll do a good job keeping the mosquito population down as well.

This is funny, because we were in the courtyard playing scrabble, and my boyfriend was like "I hope I don't get bit by a mosquito" and his stepdad "well now that we have those magical mosquito eating fish, they'll just jump out and get them all!" and the bf had a bag of pickle juice, and I was like "well, if you pour pickle juice over your head, it will ward off mosquitos!" I was really just hoping he would do it because it would be funny, but now that you said that, I guess it really would have worked!

Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 7:59 am

There's always the option of...inviting more birds to your yard. I use to have buckets that had standing water and the birds would just sit on the edge and bob for larvae or swoop in snapping at the mosquito. perhaps one of the more entertaining things in my childhood.

Birds. You have the fish now invite the birds. You could 'train' birds to fly near your pond, enticing them with bird feed and slowly decrease the amount of seed you put so they'd still come back every once in a while for seed but will see the larvae and the parent mosquito.

nom nom nom.

Ta Lu

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Vanilla eXee

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Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 8:16 am

Ta Lu

There's always the option of...inviting more birds to your yard. I use to have buckets that had standing water and the birds would just sit on the edge and bob for larvae or swoop in snapping at the mosquito. perhaps one of the more entertaining things in my childhood.

Birds. You have the fish now invite the birds. You could 'train' birds to fly near your pond, enticing them with bird feed and slowly decrease the amount of seed you put so they'd still come back every once in a while for seed but will see the larvae and the parent mosquito.

nom nom nom.

There are actually two birds sitting out here right now in the tree above the pond, I might give that a try, but I hope they don't eat my fish. Here's a thought, when I get chickens, if they eat mosquitos will that make it unsafe to eat their eggs?

Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 8:31 am

@ Vanilla: If you knew everything that chickens eat, you'd probably never eat an egg!

Keep the water moving in your pond. Mosquitoes like still water. The frogs that just show up of their own accord will do a good job of eating any bugs, including mosquitoes. We have had a goldfish pond here for many years, and it does not cause us any mosquito problems----most of our mosquitoes come from the hidden pockets of moisture in the grass and the shrubbery! Birds do eat some of them, especially purple martins and swallows, but our most valuable mosquito controllers are frogs and bats.

Try growing a big tub of lemon balm for your own mosquito repellent---just break some off, crush/rub it in your hands, and rub on your skin. It really helps. Lemon balm is a mint, so if you don't want it to take over the yard, be sure to keep it in a tub or big pot.

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dragon_of_emry

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Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 9:00 am

Some great ways to get rid of mosquitos (naturally):

In water:

Mosquitos breed in water, so standing water should be minimized. If you have saucers on pots, watering cans, or buckets in the yard, make sure you dump them out after rainstorms or watering.

Some sources of standing water cannot (or should not) be elliminated. Some common culprits are: rain barrels, bird baths, fountains, small (man-made) ponds and creeks. For these sources, I prefer to use mosquito dunks. Mosquito dunks are organic. The active ingredient is spinosad, which is a bacteria that is harmful to most insects. It has not been found dangerous to pets, most fish, or people, but it is generally reccommended to avoid use in places children and the elderly may swim or on fruits and vegetables within a short time before consumption just to be on the safe side. The bacteria will need to be re-introduced several times during mosquito season, since it will die off as the season progresses and give mosquitos the opportunity to lay more eggs. The concentration needed is small enough that run-off will not pose a significant risk to larger nearby water sources. Spinosad will kill many beneficial insects, though, so if you are butterfly gardening, bee-keeping, are still lucky enough to have fireflies in your area, or are working with a naturally occuring water source you should avoid its use because it may impact your micro-eco-system in unexpected (and undesirable) ways.

In the air:
I see that bee-keeping has already been mentioned. Another predator to mosquitos are bats. Many people place bat-houses in their yards to help control mosquito populations. If you are like me and would be disturbed more by the bats than the mosquitos, then obviously this isn't your solution. Again, many people love bat-keeping and have wonderful success with it. As a bonus, bat guano is an excellent organic fertilizer.
Candles made with essential oils of moaquito-repelling plants work well in very small areas. Citronella candles are readily available commercially.
Sonic/ Sonar style mosquito repellant machines (send out sound wave) are very expensive and have not proven to be very effective. My opinion: save your money.

In the garden:
Many plants repel mosquitos. Some of the more popular mosquito repelling plants are: citronella (scented geranium), lemon grass, garlic, juniper, lemon eucalyptus, marigolds, and cedar. Cedar mulch also makes a great repellent (and it smells wonderful!). Again, these will all repel more than just mosquitos, so keep that in mind when planning your garden.

On you:
There are many wonderful organic insect repellants on the market. My favorite is Cedarcide. The store I used to get it from is gone, so I recently got Repel Lemon Eucalyptus insect repellant ($4.50 at Wal-Mart) to try. Natural repellants smell much better than the nasty deet things, too!

Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 11:50 am

sunsetsmile

@ Vanilla: If you knew everything that chickens eat, you'd probably never eat an egg!

Keep the water moving in your pond. Mosquitoes like still water. The frogs that just show up of their own accord will do a good job of eating any bugs, including mosquitoes. We have had a goldfish pond here for many years, and it does not cause us any mosquito problems----most of our mosquitoes come from the hidden pockets of moisture in the grass and the shrubbery! Birds do eat some of them, especially purple martins and swallows, but our most valuable mosquito controllers are frogs and bats.

Try growing a big tub of lemon balm for your own mosquito repellent---just break some off, crush/rub it in your hands, and rub on your skin. It really helps. Lemon balm is a mint, so if you don't want it to take over the yard, be sure to keep it in a tub or big pot.

Well they eat everything, that doesn't bother me. But do their stomachs digest the pathogens the mosquitoes may be carrying safely, or will they pass them on to eggs? I know that many communities use chickens as sentinels to test whether or not their are mosquito borne illnesses around, but that just relies on the chickens getting bit and contracting them.

I'm not worried about them in my pond, I know that as long as I have something in there mosquito larvae are toast. The mosquitofish are there to keep it cycled and eat the larvae until I get axolotls, then I'll move them to the fountain and use the babies as feeders.

The lemon balm idea is a good one, does it smell like lemon? I love lemons, we always have to have several around because I like them in my water and I suck on them when I feel nauseous. Planning on growing a lemon tree now that we're in a climate suitable for citrus.

Vanilla eXee

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Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 3:56 pm

Yes, lemon balm smells like lemon. It is heavenly! It grows on the west side of the goldfish pond, and there is lavender tucked into some rocks (to keep it from freezing/drowning) high on the north side. I can't stay out of either of them, and they smell wonderful together.

Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2011 6:44 pm

sunsetsmile

Yes, lemon balm smells like lemon. It is heavenly! It grows on the west side of the goldfish pond, and there is lavender tucked into some rocks (to keep it from freezing/drowning) high on the north side. I can't stay out of either of them, and they smell wonderful together.

I need to find some of that, I am a sucker for lemon (please excuse my bad pun).