How to Prevent Mosquito Breeding in Water Plants: A Guide

We always want to find out how to get the pests away, and on this post, we try to assess how to prevent mosquito breeding in water plants.

Having plants in your house is one of the trendy aesthetics today. From succulents to hanging plants they are surely a pleasing sight in our eyes. Looking at them makes you feel fresh and feel like you’re living with nature. Having a pond in your yard is also a great way to beautify your home. You can fill your pond with fishes or water plants.

You might think that you just have to shove those plants in water and just let them be, but maintaining them might be a little bit difficult. There are still dangers that your plant babies might be facing. This includes mosquitoes targeting your water plants as their new habitat. Mosquitoes would also love to have a lovely home to start their family and where your water plants are, is one of the perfect places where they can breed. But how do these mosquitoes even breed? Why do they love water and can we prevent them? And to finalize later: how to prevent mosquito breeding in water plants.

HOW DO MOSQUITOES BREED?

Mosquitoes are bloodsucking insects that love to breed on stagnant or standing waters. They are so annoying when they buzz around you and bite you. Their bites feel itchy and we don’t want that. Their life cycle has four stages. Starting from the eggs up to where they enter the adult life. Mother mosquitoes look for a new home to lay her baby eggs. When they are laid, they can accumulate up to 200 eggs and they are also called as rafts.

These eggs float on the surface of the water and they may hatch within 48 hours after they have been laid. They hatch when they are exposed to water and then they move to the next stage of their life, they become larvae. The larvae are also called as wrigglers. These wriggling insects love to swim in the surface of the water; this is the stage where most homeowners put BTI infused products to get rid of them before they turn into the bloodsucking stage.

When they survive staying in the water, they turn into a pupa, like the caterpillars before they turn into those beautiful butterflies. The pupa stage is the unmoving, unbothered stage. This is where they don’t move but is responsive to light changes. They prepare in the adult life to feed on blood and produce more family. After the pupa stage, they emerge from it then turn into the mosquito. They dry themselves off before flying, looking for us so they can have their first meal. They become mosquitoes after two days to a week into the pupa stage. They turn from eggs to mosquitoes in about two weeks.

WHERE DO THE BREED?

Mosquitoes need water in order to reproduce. They like to stay on stagnant or standing water, and we give them the perfect opportunity where to breed. They can stay in our pools, puddles in our lawns, old tin cans tires and anywhere where there is water. Even the gutters in our houses are perfect for them since there may be leftover rainwater.

USING WATER PLANTS TO BEAUTIFY OUR HOME

There are a lot of features in our homes that we want to improve. One thing homeowner’s love is to design their homes and gardens. Plants are one of the many ways we use to improve our home. We can try different things such as using water plants or maybe build a pond and take care of fishes like Koi fishes.

Water plants or aquatic plants thrive in water (as the name suggests). You can have them indoors or put them in your ponds or fountains. There are a lot of types of water or aquatic plants that you can use to beautify your home. You can buy them at your local orchid are you or anywhere that sales plants. And they are easy to take care of, so why not try growing your very own Water plants. There are plants that are needed to be submerged in water, there plants that just float around, and swamp plants with half of the plant submerged.

EXAMPLES OF THESE WATER PLANTS

Some of these water plants that you can grow or the spider plant, English Ivy, arrowhead and other plants that we can put in our vases and jars. The spider plant can help you refresh the air inside your home it is also one of the easiest plants to grow indoors. The English Ivy is one of the most common type the girl in your home and it is not easy to take care Of ivies put them square there is bright light because they love light and they may look like they’re sick when they don’t get enough light.

We also have the Amazon frogbit, mosquito fern, hornworts, and many more. The Amazon frogbit which can be seen in most ponds and aquariums are growing easily, so make sure to check on them and trim them. While on the other hand, the duckweed is one of the smallest aquatic plants. They also float on the surface of the water and may serve as food for some animals like cattle and rabbits. Fishes in your ponds will also love those Hornworts help in maintaining oxygen in our aquariums. They can be breeding grounds for our koi. They don’t have roots and they have thin leaves. You can also add them to your pond. Other than those types of in their plants there also plants that you can add to your ponds such as water lilies that keep the water clean, watercress that is edible to eat, and other pond plants.

To save mother earth and to reduce the waste you can use old jars or bottles to grow them. Try to recycle old bottles and design them to add a little something. You can use cuttings from your plants to start your water plant heaven. Some plants may take weeks or months to grow. The Fiddle Leaf Fig may take 3 to 6 months to grow. The size of the jar that you will be using on your plants should depend on how much they consume water. Some love to drink a lot, like the sweet potato vine, so you may want to use a larger jar.

Aquatic plants are one of the best ways to add some OMF to your home. These plants can even purify the air in your home and act as food to your fish babies. They can also serve as breeding places for your fishes and may become their favourite hangout place. They are also useful as a filter to the dirt in your aquariums and even help in the oxygen production

If we have ponds in our garden, this could be an area where they can create a home for their eggs. Our vases filled will water plans can also serve as a place for them to settle in. we just want to beautify our home; we don’t want those nasty bloodsuckers to ruin it.

BUT WATER PLANTSTHRIVE IN WATER AND THEY ARE MOSTLY STAGNANT OR STANDING?

Our water plants give the mosquitoes a perfect place to breed. Since the water in pots, vases and ponds are standing, not flowing, mosquitoes breed on them. The obvious answer would be to remove these waters since that is one way to get rid of breeding centres for mosquitoes. But how will you water plants live?  Well, there are ways to prevent those bloodsucking buzzers to produce more of their swarm in our water plants. Here are some ways to prevent mosquito breeding in water plants:

1. Add fishes to your ponds. Your fishes wouldn’t want to be disturbed in their sanctuary and may think that those mosquito eggs are food. They may eat these eggs and you can say goodbye to the start of the mosquito life cycle. You can add guppies and goldfish to your ponds. Not only do fishes add beauty in your garden, but they also eat those mosquito eggs and help prevent these eggs from turning into a swarm of mosquitoes. They love to snack on these protein-packed mosquito eggs.
2. You can use chemicals to kill these mosquito larvae. There are a lot of types of chemicals that you can use like the BTI or Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis which is a bacterial insecticide. You can break down mosquito dunks and add them to your ponds or vases. They kill the mosquito larvae.
3. Maintain your plants. Trimming or thinning them will help clear out the water. Also, overgrown in your plants will serve as home to adult mosquitoes, so it is good for you to trim them down. Change the water in your jars and vases.
4. Add moving water. You can add a fountain in your pond or add a pumping your aquariums to keep the water moving. This will be hard for the mosquitoes to lay their eggs.
5. Remove other places where these mosquitoes can breed. As mosquitoes visit your home, they will look for breeding sites. If there will be breeding sites for these mosquitoes, they will be not be producing more and they won’t be potentially breeding in your plants.
6. Put mosquito traps. Eradicating the adult mosquitoes will help in preventing mosquito breeding in your plants. As mosquitoes breed, they produce more mosquitoes; these mosquitoes will also breed and produce more of their swarm. If there are no mosquitoes, there will be no breeding.
7. Remove algae. Larvae would love to feast on algae in your ponds, remove algae and clean your ponds.
8. You can use gel beads. This will absorb the water and will still let your plant live. This works for the lucky bamboo plants.
9. You can use your water plants against the mosquitoes. Adding the water plants in your pond will lessen the surface area where mosquitoes can breed. But make sure that they don’t grow out too much; this will also be a way for the mosquitoes to breed.
10. Put your plants in the best lighting. Not only does this help plants get their daily vitamins from Mr Sunshine, but this will also swat mosquitoes away, saying goodbye to them and not letting them breed in your plants.

Water lilies and other plants can be sources of standing water, so make sure that the leaves don’t accumulate water.

BUT IF THERE ARE MOSQUITOES, THEY WILL STILL BE BREEDING IN YOUR PLANTS

We don’t want our plants to be disturbed by these mosquitoes. And when they grow, they will pester us next. It is important for you to get rid of mosquitoes since they may be carrying different viruses. They may be transmitting diseases. Getting rid the adult mosquitoes can help prevent breeding in our water plants. And on to how to prevent mosquito breeding in water plants–No mosquitoes, no breeding. Here are also some tips to shoo away those mosquitoes so they won’t be bothering your water plants:

1. Remove potential breeding sites. Your water plants may be a potential breeding site, but you don’t have to throw them away, just clean them regularly. Do throw out old tires, clean out gutter and such.
2. Add other plants. Look for plants that shoo mosquito away. One plant is the lemongrass, which is known to be an effective mosquito repellant.
3. Add mosquito traps. They will help in eliminating adult mosquitoes. They will also help you be protected from being itchy because of mosquito bites.
4. If they do breed in your water areas, kill them. They can breed in your pool, you can add mosquito dunks or methanol granules to kill those larvae, if they die, they will not be adult mosquitoes, and then they will not be breeding so no more mosquitoes buzzing around you.

We can start our water garden without any worry! Adding a water feature in our homes is a refreshing natural look. Trying out water plants can also be a good hobby. Try to read more about the types of water plants and you can now start your own indoor water heave at home. So do we really understand how to prevent mosquito breeding in water plants?

With these methods, we can now start trying them to know what method is best for your plant babies. When we prevent these mosquitoes to breed, they will not be choosing our plants as their new home.