Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

While I moved my growbeds this weekend I discovered a smewhat disturbing thing - mosquito wrigglers in the standpipe area of 2 of the growbeds.
I have a large pvc pipe to keep the stone back with a short 2cm standpipe in the middle (so that there is always a little water in my growbeds)...
Well, I romoved the standpipe to drain the bed and out flowed a number of mosquito wrigglers! There goes the theory that they wont breed in moving water!

Holy Crap. That's not good. But how many are getting flushed down to your fishies as food every flush? Wait you are usin a continuous flow arn't you? What if there isn't that much flow in that area, or not enough to stop them breeding.

You would think that once the larvae turned into adults they would fly away through the standpipe. Solution is to put some mozzie screen over the top of the standpipe. Won't interfere with its operation at all.

I thought about that... for now I turn up the flow every few days then let it drain completely, feeding the fish below!
I will snip and fit some mesh soon!

On the toppic of mozzies... has anybody tried any aquaponics friendly mozzie repelant plants. I have always been told lemon grass is a good one. It does contain small amounts of citronella oils which could possibly affect the fish, not sure. You could try lavendar or camomile, watch out though in my experience these plants can easily grow to the size of the container. Possibly plant them in conventional soil and pots near the growbeds.