Draining the swamp in Seminyak Bali
Taking my own advice, or at least the advice posted on my own website, I had Ana’s husbands Fery, come over and bores holes in my flower pots. During the wet season these babies fill up with water, making them ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes. A few minutes with the power drill and that threat was greatly reduced. Nyoman the owner probably won’t care, the pots are made of cement and you can pick them up everywhere. Locals tell me its possible to put ikan kacil (little fish) in the pots, that will swim around and eat the mosquito eggs.
Sounds great, but I prefer something a little more permanent. While typing, Fery showed up again with a bag of little fish! He put them into my 3rd flower pot, in the garden. Remembering we have another outside the front door, Ana and I tried to scoop the little fish out of the first pot, using a cup and bowl. They were fast, but I got 3 transfered to their new home. The fish are black and about a centimeter long, Hope they are hungry and clean out all the larvae. The family of frogs are still camping out in my bathroom. They congregate under the faucet for the bathtub. In the evening, I’ll see one hoping across the porch towards the garden. They don’t bother me, so no worries.
By Nick | Permalink
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I have a very private, reasonably large back garden which I try to pretend is like a little bit of Bali. It includes a large shadehouse, which sort of contains similar plants which we may see if sitting on one of the lower levels of Murni’s Warung in Ubud. [I have to use my imagination here, of course! LOL]
I’ve got a large earthenware pot in the shadehouse and I’m trying to attract frogs, which I hope will breed.
It wasn’t long before my pot was well stocked with mossie larvae, so I got some advice from our local environmental centre. They told me not to use the so-called mossie fish, originally from the US, which have been deliberately introduced almost worldwide in the mistaken belief that they provide efficient mossie control. These fish are called Gambusia. They are in virtually all of our lakes, ponds, slow moving river pools and wetlands, in plague proportions. What they do is decimate, sometimes virtually wipe out the local native small fish. They also eat frogspawn and tadpoles.
Following the expert advice, I introduced some small [named] native Australian fish, which I was able to buy from a pond/aquarium supply place. No more mossie larva and they won’t interfere with the frog breeding either. I’m really looking forward to this and I hope you have success too, Nick.