Mosquito Fish

These are mosquito fish, so named because they really go after the mosquito larvae! I was looking at my pond and wondered what all of the little, tiny "sticks" were in my pond. They looked like part of my compost, but I don't have compost around the pond at this time. I went to pick up a couple of the "sticks" to see what they were, and they wiggled away. Suddenly, it dawned on me that they were mosquito larvae, and there were a lot of them! My husband called the city(mosquito abatement), who very willingly will supply us with these fish. It is part of the city's plan to keep the mosquito population down. It seems that this year, at least in my neighborhood, we have very big mosquitoes, something we haven't seen before. They aren't from my pond, as this started before I got it, but I don't want to contribute to the population.
This was a cute picture of mosquito fish eating mosquito larvae--don't the larvae look like sticks? It's said that one adult fish can eat 100 larvae each day! If you run out of larvae, then you can feed the fish regular tropical fish food, just don't use too much or you will create a problem of too much organic matter in your pond. I am suppose to get my fish today--I don't even have to be home!--and there will be just enough fish for my size pond. Mosquito larvae problem gone!

Pond Addition

My husband is an avid (or is it rabid?) duck hunter. He joked that ducks would land in my little pond; and then he brought home one of his decoys! He surprised me when I looked out my kitchen window and I saw the duck! He says it's a male Green Wing Teal. I am waiting for some frogs and toads to show up--that's my kind of "yard art"!

My Pond

Last month my husband and I bought a small pond, and he installed it. I have a miniature cattail (in the upper part of the pond) and a pink lily (there are two small leaves that are floating on the surface). It has a bubbler that that keeps the water moving, and filters it, too. You can see that there are some large rocks in the pond, and a few outside the pond--this is an ongoing project and I will likely move everything around (except the pond). This area is at the entry of my house and I want to create a cool, welcoming garden. Soon, I hope it will be more shaded, and then it will create a nice place for frogs and toads (and people, too!). We used to have hundreds of toads in the summer, but they died out several years ago (the neighbors all around us started using companies that sprayed their yards for bugs every month). We still have one or two toads, and needed a pond for them to reproduce (that's the reason I got this pond!). Toads are great bug-eaters!