KittenFishMom

yes, we found the light zapper did not work well.

batts would be wonderful, but they are almost all gone here due the illness that was killing them. We put up a bat house on the outside of the garage.

I saw a youtube video about bloodworms awhile back. It said once you got the bloodworms going (and I assume the mosquito larva out) to put a net over the tub to keep the breeding bloodworm adults in and the mosquito adults out. I'm going to look into it for this spring. I remember seeing red larva when I was catching mosquito larva last spring. As I remember, the adult bloodworms do not eat, just breed and lay eggs. The larva do all the eating. I plan to do more research.

I was feeding the larva to wild fish. the fish only seemed to be attracted to movement, so I wanted the larva wiggling. I won't feed them mosquito larva next year, unless someone here has a great method for controlling the adults after the live larva are put in the tank.

As a side note: These were native wild fish and they had no interest in anything that did not wiggle. It was spring, and there were not many worms around. YouTube had video after video about how to get a ton of free wiggling larva to feed fish to keep them happy and healthy. Funny, there were no videos that mentioned the free hungry adults that would result. I should have known better.

I was gathering the mosquito larva from buckets with water and leave and dumping into the 120 tank for the fish to feed on. the mosquitoes were not laying eggs in the tank that I know of. I was the cause of my problem. My fish loved eating the mosquito larva. They would probably love eating the mosquito fish too. This spring, I might try separating bloodworm from mosquito larva, and raise the bloodworms under a net in a tub. My guess is this works on a small scale. If you are putting them in a small tank, one at a time and making sure they get eaten before the next one goes in. I was dumping in a lot of larva day after day, and the fish would go crazy eating them. but there must have been someplace in the tank for the larva to hide from the fish and mature. Once the adults started showing up, I stopped adding the larva to the tank. It took weeks for all the adults to mature and leave the tank and die out, after I stopped loading the tank with the larva.

Thanks so much for your reply. The tank in my garage is a 120 tank full of native fish, plants, snails, crayfish, and at times, mudpuppies. Some of fish are big enough to be eaten by people others are much smaller, but usually too big to be eaten by the big fish. When I found damselfly larva, I always put them in the tank, but every one was eaten shortly (3-10 seconds) after being added to the tank. How do you keep the fish from eating the damselfly larva? Maybe I could build a floating open topped mesh cage for them to hang out in? maybe a breeding box would work. I will research that. I add fresh seaweed from the lake most days for the fish to hunt in, to supplement the worms and adult brine shrimp and other live food. They go through it carefully and completely. I had a canister filter and 4 sponge filters and 2 HOB filters going. I tried growing duckweed from the lake, but there was too much agitation with all the filters. The mudpuppies and bullhead catfish were very messy fish. and feeding a handfuls of earthworms put a lot of fine mud from inside the worms into the water. They would also eat any small fish or small crayfish. How does the clumping azolla work on the mosquitoes?

This summer, when I had a lot of sunfish and bluegills in my native tank, I started feeding mosquito larva. Youtube was full of people saying that fish thrived on them, and how to set up wonderful water to get loads of free healthy fish food. I even bought a bigger mosquito net so I could catch even more. The wild fish went, well, went wild for them ! One small problem was that the fish did not get every last larva. In no time my garage had more adult mosquitoes per square foot than any place else on earth. Anyone who walked into the garage was swarmed. I stopped feed the larva, but it didn't help. I left the door open at night, with the lights off. I left the door open durring the day. I bought a mosquito zapping light. I put on repellent everytime I went in the garage. I still got eaten alive. I don't like pestisides, and I really did not want to spray any with my fish tank there. I could find nothing on youtube about how to handle a fish room full of very hungry mosquitoes. There was nothing in the garage for them to eat, but me ! Over time, they did die off, but it took much longer than I wanted it to. Anyone have any tricks on how to avoid adult mosquitoes, if you are feeding live wiggling larva to your fish?

I just saw the betta eat a betta bead of food. He is swimming more like his normal self. Thank you to everyone who helped !

@bettta999 The betta is back in the tank. He swam a little and hide under the almond leaf on the bottom. A cory nugde the leaf and he swam out and could not find his way back under, so I put to flat pebbles under the leaf, spaced a bit so he could easily get back under the leaf. I think the best thing now is time and hope. I put 2 betta beads in his floating feeder, but he did not bother to check it. Wish use luck. The geese on the lake took off as a bald eagle showed up to fish. I'll hope that is a good omen.

@bettta999 First THANK YOU for helping me and my fish (sorry I did not say it sooner) I have plant lights well above the 55 tank that shine into the betta 10. They are on 12 hour times. I can add more light to make the tank look different. A bit more back ground. I have used a betta mirror with him for 3 or 4 minutes at a time. I have used it to check his fins and to be sure he is not constipated. I never takes my eyes off him when it is in the tank and never leave it in for the full 5 minutes. My husband is in town where there is a petsmart if you want me to ask him to get anything. I have the quarantine trio, meracyn two, and stress coat. I have only used the trio when I got these fish. I could do it again.

@bettta999 I have him in the white bucket with sponge filter and tank water. I will scrub the walls and vacuum the floor or the tank. and move things around. Anything else I should do? For plants, I only have water sprite, red temple, windlov java and tons of hornwort. Also have the turnip with the long roots into the tank, in the HOB that I used several days ago to suck the nitogen out of the water when it started 2 rise. only used it for 48 hours. Ammonia, nirtate and nitrite went to zero and I move the HOB back to the 55 tank. Hea was fine while the HOB was there and for several days afterwards.

@bettta999 I have white, yellow clear plastic buckets, stainless steal buck and clear huge glass punch bowls. Which do yo think would be best for the betta? show I cover it with a towel so it is dark and restful? Should I usefull tank water or well water or half and half?

Right, the scud are fine. They are in the gravel and the filter etc. The betta normally just likes hunting around the rocks. and gets ecxited if he flushes one out.

@bettta999 I have gravel cover with loosely stacked store at one end of the tank for the scuds. the betta normally loves to poke around the stones huntig for scuds. there is a good bunch of hornwort in the tank, some floating, some weighted with filter rings. He has his betta log and a hammock. he usually swims throughthe log often. and checks on the hammock, but does not rest there. @bettta999 I did remove the signs yesterday, and will remodel the tank. I am following you, just giving you some back ground. @bettta999 What is the best way to remove him from the tank? He is a crown tail. I remember you should not use a net on male bettas. I'm not sure what to use.

@bettta999 the alert signs have been in the tank for weeks. yesterday was the first time I saw him resting on them.

@bettta999 This is a sudden big change in his behavior. I watch him a lot. Something may have happened before he started resting on the signs, or resting on the signs might have caused a problem. I did not expect him to live when I brought him home from the store, but I felt so sorry for him laying on the bottom of the cup the entire time we were at the store. He has become very active and busy, checking on everything all day long. I'm hoping that if it was something in the sign chemicals it will wear off with time and water. He is in a 10 gallon tank, with 3 small happy active cory and one flag fish, all from the same store.

@bettta999I got him Dec 17th. he was the smallest betta in the store, marked down to $4.99 because he had been there a long time. It was a chain store. You can read about him in "newbie takes the plunge" thread started Dec 17th. He has been getting stronger and more active steadily. I checked the water 3 times yesterday and daily before that. I will check again as soon as I finish eating.

My betta was on the bottom of the tank, under the heater. I passed my hand over the glass and he did not move. so I swosh some water never him. He swam to the top of the tank and swam a little and then swam onto the alomond leaf and is resting. I'm going to eat breakfast and check on him again. He is in full light on top of the leaf. @bettta999 What do you think?

Wind chimes in the front yard, geese quickly talking over the day on the lake, 4 HOB filters, and some sponge filters gently bubbling along. Soon the sounds of a cat and a kitten purring as we fall asleep in bed.

He seems to be sleeping on the almond leaf now. I'm going to head to bed soon. I will let you know how he is doing when I wake up. If the betta is better in the morning, I'll start a batch of brine shrimp eggs brewing and all the tanks can celibrate the betta's recovery on Friday. I gave the guppies a good water change and added more scuds. 2 huge snails are hard at work. I put an algae covered rock from the creek in with the tetras and corys. Something the tetras could see but I could not came off the rock as it warmed up and the tetras had a major feast. The corys loved the thick slimy algea. The bullheads are dancing up and down the glass now that almost all the lights are out.

@Guppysnail he was resting between the alerts and the glass this evening, at times with his head over the senser dots. All I have is a sponge filter with a medium low air flow. I moved the turnip in an HOB for 2 days a few days ago to impre water quality. and put it back in the big tank. He has started swimming again, but is not his normal self. He is taking sudden sharp turns, like something is startling him.

I got him Dec 17th. He was fine this morning. no change in water parms The alomond leaf is floating and he is on top of it.

@HydraSlayer @bettta999The betta is acting slugish and showed no interest in the blood worms I offered him. So I took the alert signs out. I hope they did not poison him. I just added and almond leaf. I figure it can't hurt and might help.

I put the log in. He swam around it and went back to the plastic sign. Sigh, kids always like the box better than the toy bought for them. Do you think the chemical in the patch in the middle of the sign will be bad for him. Here is a like to them on Amazon: https://smile.amazon.com/Alerts-Combo-Pack-2-Monitors/dp/B004HSQSLG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3BD2XF7XSB6NN&keywords=seachem+alert+combo+aquarium+ph+%26+ammonia+detector&qid=1641419407&sprefix=aquarium+ph+aler%2Caps%2C142&sr=8-1