Managing Mosquito Larvae

There is nothing quite like spending time by the pond watching little beings such as frogs, dragon flies, hover flies, and birds live their busy lives.

However this experience was made far less pleasant when certain little beings busy lives include sucking blood out of you and possibly giving you diseases (around here Ross River Virus is spread by mosquitoes) and if you are like me mosquito bites cause itchy welts. In the end I was busy cutting their lives short to extend my own!

Much to my horror my pond was a first rate breeding ground for these creatures. I was torn. There is no such thing as a totally tadpole friendly fish. However some are kinder than others, so after researching I bought four local West Australian pygmy perch. They only grow about 6 cm long and because of their dull colouring I rarely got a glimpse of them. However they did do an excellent job of eating mosquitoe larvae.


I don't have a pump and had to keep the pond topped up to keep oxygen levels high as well as regularly removing algal growth by hand. The fish bred to quite large numbers. I estimate between 50 - 60 of these fish were in the ponder in under a year.


Unfortunately my father suddenly grew ill and I spent time away from home to be with him. Sadly he passed and after returning home all the fish were floating on top of the pond, dead. I assume that not topping up the pond and allowing the algae to grow unchecked for a fortnight caused a lack of oxygen which killed them all.