FlyTrapCare Forums

I added two Betta fish to my rain water collection system last week. They removed 100% of mosquito larva in the 1st 48 hours. So far they seem very healthy and happy. Today I placed a order for some Betta leaf hammock pads so they will have a place to rest near the surface.

The less fancy Betta fish are 3.99 at the local pet super store. If this works out I should have natural mosquito larva control for a big chunk of the growing seasons, much cheaper than mosquito dunks.

That's a really cool way to control those pesky blood suckers!

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

I tried to take some photo's but the reflection is just killing the shot.

If they are males they will fight until death. A group of females will get along somewhat OK, but males will fight. Thus the name Siamese Fighting Fish

They are not together. Most females will still fight. I wanted females because less fins = less issues, but all the cheap females were tiny.

won't the fish poop in your water?

Yeah but so would the mosquito larva they remove. I don't feel such a tiny fish will effect to much. Guess i could add some duck weed to counter the fish waste.

that's a really awesome idea! If you have the tap right at the bottom I guess you could flush out a few liters once in a while to clear out any poop build-up. I wonder if the fish waste will have any impact? if it's a big enough tank it probably will be so minimal if fresh water is been added every time it rains. I really dig the idea and the idea of having some floating plants on the top too, you can get some real nice stuff. I love those floating Letuce.

Hey, maybe you could also put some bladderworts in there also!!

I placed a order for "Floating Plants Mix - Water lettuce, Duckweed, Red Root Floaters, Salvinia Natans" and also a few "Water Hyacinth"

Water Hyacinth's may be to much to be honest, they can spread like 8+ feet in 24hours in perfect conditions. My old house i had a koi pond the filter was a 900g tub and in the top i kept Water Hyacinth, this attractive plants ability to filter the water amazing but its rate of growth is scary.

well this idea did not work out when it rains hard and the tubs over flow the Betta's want to jump out.

I could not find one of them, I guess a bird found him 1st. The other one is now inside but still eating live mosquito larva as a staple food.

You could drill a hole just below the top of the barrel to set the water level. Then put a PVC elbow with a screen over the one end through the hole and seal it up. That way it will overflow out through the PVC but the fish won't be able to get through.

I think it is the amount of water flow that is the issue. last week we had 4 inches in 1 day and it collects from a metal roof so that means the tubs had over 5+ feet. I imagine the jumping is the fish trying to get to the air to breath with a waterfall pouring on to them.

I had a few ideas on how to solve the issues but i think it will be much more cost effective to just drop my sump pump in each tub for a few twice a week to drown the larva. I did get some floating plants out of my experiment.

The fish will make ammonia, which will eventually cause some sort of organism to convert it to nitrite and again, another organism will take that to nitrate. Not sure how the presence of those would affect any plants you plan to use the water for.

Supercazzola wrote:The fish will make ammonia

The fish was a bust because of heavy rain agitation. The fish waste is minimal when its a 1.5 inch fish in a 100g tub. Floating plants could remove 100,000X what the fish could produce on a sunny day. People are really interested when they walk by my water hyacinth's, to bad they are illegal to sell in southern states.

optique wrote: ↑Mon Jul 05, 2021 9:06 pm People are really interested when they walk by my water hyacinth's, to bad they are illegal to sell in southern states.

FYI - Water hyacinth is illegal to sell in these states:

• Alabama
• Arkansas
• Arizona
• California
• Florida
• Louisiana
• Idaho
• Illinois (city of Chicago)
• Mississippi
• Nebraska
• South Carolina
• Texas
• Wisconsin

It's legal here in North Carolina. I'm not sure why Idaho, Illinois (city of Chicago), Nebraska, and Wisconsin are on the list; it's far too cold there in the winter for water hyacinth to survive from one season to the next.