I have been trying to locate fathead minnows for the ponds so the minnows can eat the mosquito larvae. Earlier this season, a truck from a hatchery in Arkansas was supposed to bring some for pickup at a feed store, but did not call to notify me of pick up time, so I missed the truck. Tried a couple of other sources. No luck. A bait supplier in Shreveport was supposed to deliver to my house this week. Their order did not arrive, so they didn't come, didn't call. Our county extension agent returned a call from me yesterday morning and gave me the name and number of a hatchery about 70 miles away. I called there and offered to make the round trip so that the minnows would not get heat stressed during transit. Was told that they do not even attempt to pull up minnows at this time of the year because the hot water makes the minnows very sick. No more minnows available until this fall.

The good news is that the man at the hatchery told me the best minnows for mosquito larvae control is a different variety that can be found in most ponds in East Texas. (It is an Italian name that starts with a G.) He said that when the people from the hatchery go out and clean ponds as completely as possible, they find young minnows of this variety present again within a few days. Maybe that will help provide somewhat of a buffer for western Louisiana. Hope so. Gregg County has already had one death and we logged our first confirmed case Friday.

ETA: We have seen fewer and fewer birds this year vs. last year. That has probably not been good for mosquito control. The squirrels have almost disappeared over the last two weeks. Kind of odd.

A few drops of detergent in a pond will do the trick.

Azusgm: Order a few hundred feeder guppies from a pet store. They'll clean out the mosquito larvae but they won't survive the winter.

Couldn't get them down here when I last tried. Worth looking again.

Certainly don't want anyone spraying near our ponds since my bee hives and organic garden are located nearby.

There are flyovers out there all the time. No secret that the ponds are there and no privacy either.

Thanks, y'all.

Azusgm: Any pet store should be able to special order feeder guppies when you're talking about several hundred. People need them for carnivorous fish.

And they're cheap, especially in quantity.

You might want to make arrangements to pick them up upon delivery. Tell them that you'll pick them up when they're delivered and that they won't need to put them in their own tanks, that may make them more likely to do it for you. That leads to profit for them with minimal or no hassle because they won't even have to take them out of the shipping package. If one store wont, call another. I've never seen one that wouldn't do special orders like that. (I used to manage pet stores.) If worst comes to worst, you could do some research on line and order them directly, but you'll probably have to pick them up at the airport unless there is a local breeder that you could drive to.

Guppies are an absolute terror on mosquito larvae.

Hope they can tolerate some 90-degree+ weather for a bit longer. I'll call those pet stores tomorrow.

Thanks.

Ducks keep my ponds skeeter free

Azusgm: Air temp isn't that important, it's the water temp. If the water temp is under 85 or so, there shouldn't be any problem at all. At 90, it's a bit on the high side, but they should still survive.

Guppies are pretty tough in that respect.

Oh, be sure to acclimatize them before dumping them in. They should come in a big styrofoam box, dump them out of the bag into the box then slowly (over a period of an 3-4 hours add water from the pond. Remove water from the container if it gets too high. If it's a 5 gallon container, remove about a gallon and add a gallon after it's full. Do that every 30-60 minutes for 3-4 hours.

Then just dump them in the pond. They're reasonably tough little fish compared to many others.

Also, they are live bearers. They should go through 2 or 3 generations a month. If you put two hundred in, you'll probably have 5000+ plus in 2 months.

Again, cold weather will kill them off, so it's not permanent solution. Once water temp moves into the 60's or so, they'll start dying off.

Gracias, Senor Asimov. I would have killed them immediately. Good info.

I'd love to have some ducks, but it is too hot for them here in the summer. Besides, they might decide to dine on my honey bees.

This West Nile problem is worrisome, but I can't help but get excited whenever it looks like rain. Dumb.

"Mosquito Dunks"...they work great for standing water. Larvae eat 'em and croak. Pet/Bird etc. friendly