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Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

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Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#291

Post by jnpnj »

johnthedebs wrote: post #180

The comments saying that other sources of water need to be removed are spot on. Another technique I've tried which works (observably) well is described in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BhV-o77RqQ tl;dw: Get a big drum fan with a screen on the back, attached with small/powerful magnets. Mosquitos are such poor flyers that they get pulled against the screen and can't escape, and they pretty quickly desic…

Fun to see Dan's videos :) (he made a lot about solar concentration too)

On a larger scale, there's this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI3HE7BcIBk&pp=ygUQbW9zcXVpd... about mosquito factories

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#292

Post by murillians »

telecuda wrote: post #255

Related, I've found this to be the most effective gadget to stop the itch of a mosquito bite: https://www.amazon.com/Vibis-Rechargeable-Mosquito-Chemical-... (Source: Floridian who has tried everything)

I have a fancy kettle and warm water to the lowest heat it’s got (~160f) then pour it into an insulated mug with a spoon. Stir the water with the spoon then put the spoon on the bite. Works insanely well and I can usually treat all the bites we get in a night with one mug

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#293

Post by xtiansimon »

I put these into my yard a few weeks ago using 1G containers from the $1 store and a similar mosquito water treatment (dunks were sold out).

I’m not sure how to judge their effectiveness. I’m still bit. Is it down some significant percentage? I have no idea. I’m going to continue until I run out of the product. Jury is still out.

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#295

Post by steve_adams_86 »

mattmaroon wrote: post #273
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #209

If you'd like to use tap water without waiting, you can add ascorbic acid to water straight from the tap and it'll neutralize the chlorine and chloramine. Ascorbic acid is a great, environmentally-safe reducing agent that readily donates electrons to these compounds. A 500–1000mg Vitamin C powder capsule will contain enough ascorbic acid to neutralize 5 gallons of even the worst city water with a good buffer to spare…

Interesting, would any other cheap readily available acid (like citric) work too?

Citric acid doesn't work. There are other effective reducing agents too, like Sodium thiosulfate and Sodium/Potassium metabisulfite that are pretty easy and affordable to get a hold of, but even if dosed perfectly I think there's a risk of the reduction byproducts remaining and causing toxicity to things like bacteria or other small organisms. If it's over dosed, it can easily kill larger organisms too.

Ascorbic acid is the only one I've found that I like to rely on. I use it for aquaria. Although my water is very clean and has virtually no chlorine in it, it does have trace chloramine, and I can't know if my municipality suddenly needs to treat the water more intensively. So, I always treat water I put in aquariums with around 250mg of ascorbic acid to be safe. The byproducts are safe for aquatic life, or in some cases even beneficial.

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#296

Post by Matticus_Rex »

itsanaccount wrote: post #16
boringg wrote: post #2

Anything for deer flies and horse flies?

deer and horse flies are fundamentally different. a horse fly can be caught by a chemical attractant, think the "pop" traps. Which you can scale to a 5 gallon bucket no problem. A deer fly goes after movement and the color blue, so your traps tend to be sticky traps, like a lowes bucket coated in tanglefoot. but you can't feed them to fish, chickens and they're a pain to clean. I've been looking for someone to scale…

Here's a thought -- there are instructions in various places for mosquito fan traps using a box or other sturdy fan plus mesh on one side.

Do that, but paint the fan (with blades) blue. If more movement is needed, you could probably do something pretty simple with a plastic plate painted blue and hung about a foot from the fan intake.

Cleanup isn't great, but it's better than sticky traps. Spray the mesh down with a 50:50 water:alcohol solution as needed to kill live flies in the trap before dumping.

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#297

Post by wildzzz »

arwhatever wrote: post #190
johnthedebs wrote: post #180

The comments saying that other sources of water need to be removed are spot on. Another technique I've tried which works (observably) well is described in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BhV-o77RqQ tl;dw: Get a big drum fan with a screen on the back, attached with small/powerful magnets. Mosquitos are such poor flyers that they get pulled against the screen and can't escape, and they pretty quickly desic…

Unclear from the video: do you need to use any sort of bait or lure to attract mosquitoes upstream of the fan?

I have a bug catcher that kind of looks like a Dyson bladeless fan but runs in reverse. Inside the ring, there's UV (?) LEDs to attract bugs. Once they fly in, the fan sucks them down into the base where there's a sticky paper. The base has a tight mesh around it so they are trapped if they somehow manage to not hit the sticky paper immediately. We use it for soil gnats but I've also seen some houseflies in there too.

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#298

Post by wildzzz »

anitil wrote: post #278
bink wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or a small amount of diesel fuel (the dunks are safer). People sometimes do this with abandoned pools.

What does diesel do? Does the layer of oil prevent mosquitos from laying eggs?

Larvacidal oils block them from being able to breathe at the surface of the water.

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#299

Post by ratelimitsteve »

jonjes wrote: post #283

Another excellent way to get rid of mosquitos is to attract their predators. Both hummingbirds and bats eat a surprisingly large number of mosquitos. Putting up hummingbird feeders and a bat house took care of it. I've seen only one mosquito in my yard this summer so far, even though I live next to a small wetland. Before the hummingbird feeders, we had lots of mosquitos.

Came here to say that a bat house is a self-perpetuating mosquito bucket of death that requires practically zero maintenance after install and doesn't introduce potentially invasive species of bacteria to the environment

Re: Try the Mosquito Bucket of Death

#300

Post by ratelimitsteve »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #295
mattmaroon wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, would any other cheap readily available acid (like citric) work too?

Citric acid doesn't work. There are other effective reducing agents too, like Sodium thiosulfate and Sodium/Potassium metabisulfite that are pretty easy and affordable to get a hold of, but even if dosed perfectly I think there's a risk of the reduction byproducts remaining and causing toxicity to things like bacteria or other small organisms. If it's over dosed, it can easily kill larger organisms too. Ascorbic acid…

I can't speak to the sodium based chemicals but as a homebrewer I use potassium metabisulfite (aka campdeb tablets or k-meta) in multiple steps of the brewing process and it has an ld50 in rats of over 2g/kg. It also allows for microbial growth again about 24 hours after being applied, and usually the first step to brewing from juice is to bop it with k-meta, wait a day and then add yeast. Then the last step (if you want to sweeten the wine) is to use even more k-meta to stun the existing yeast and potassium sulfate to stabilize. Because this also depends on cultivating a select flora I feel like a similar process would yield similar results without the risk of overdose in anything we'd like to preserve.
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