Questions about mosquito larvae I've never seen asked before

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

As such an economical and nutritious food, I would certainly want to incorporate mosquito larvae into the diet of my future discus. I just have some questions for those who have grown them that the research I have done has been unable to answer.

-I want to make frozen flatpacks of 454 grams like Hikari's frozen flatpacks of bloodworms, Mysis shrimp, etc. But to get a giant flatpack, I would need enough larvae of the right size collected at the same time, which I am not sure I can get.

In this video, at 2:56 I am guessing there are probably around 60-70 egg rafts in total from what I counted, and I seriously doubt I can collect 60-70 egg rafts a day, but at 4:30 the grown mosquito larvae don't look anywhere near a whole flatpack's worth. If anyone has attempted what I am doing, have you ever managed to get a Hikari flatpack worth from a single batch of larvae, and how many egg rafts would you say you needed?

-As I am a bit strained for rearing space, this is another thing I'd appreciate input on. Does the volume of the rearing container need to have enough surface area to let most or all of the larvae breathe at once, or can they get by with less area than that?

-Finally, I want to add some Vitachem to the larvae before freezing. I thought just adding some squirts in and freezing them would be fine, but I read the following product description by Hikari that gave me pause:

"Bio-Encapsulated With Multi-Vitamins
Vitamins in the animal not the water
Similar to gut loading
Guarantees your pet gets the vitamins"

Obviously I lack the ability to bio-encapsulate my own fish food, so I am concerned: would added Vitachem just wash off into the water before being eaten?

For context, and if it helps to answer the questions, I will go about this by leaving water containers in walking-distance woods, collecting any mosquito eggs on a daily basis, and rearing/preparing the larvae back at home.

[brewmaster15]

As such an economical and nutritious food, I would certainly want to incorporate mosquito larvae into the diet of my future discus. I just have some questions for those who have grown them that the research I have done has been unable to answer.

-I want to make frozen flatpacks of 454 grams like Hikari's frozen flatpacks of bloodworms, Mysis shrimp, etc. But to get a giant flatpack, I would need enough larvae of the right size collected at the same time, which I am not sure I can get.

In this video, at 2:56 I am guessing there are probably around 60-70 egg rafts in total from what I counted, and I seriously doubt I can collect 60-70 egg rafts a day, but at 4:30 the grown mosquito larvae don't look anywhere near a whole flatpack's worth. If anyone has attempted what I am doing, have you ever managed to get a Hikari flatpack worth from a single batch of larvae, and how many egg rafts would you say you needed?

-As I am a bit strained for rearing space, this is another thing I'd appreciate input on. Does the volume of the rearing container need to have enough surface area to let most or all of the larvae breathe at once, or can they get by with less area than that?

-Finally, I want to add some Vitachem to the larvae before freezing. I thought just adding some squirts in and freezing them would be fine, but I read the following product description by Hikari that gave me pause:

"Bio-Encapsulated With Multi-Vitamins
Vitamins in the animal not the water
Similar to gut loading
Guarantees your pet gets the vitamins"

Obviously I lack the ability to bio-encapsulate my own fish food, so I am concerned: would added Vitachem just wash off into the water before being eaten?

For context, and if it helps to answer the questions, I will go about this by leaving water containers in walking-distance woods, collecting any mosquito eggs on a daily basis, and rearing/preparing the larvae back at home.

This is really not a great plan.Mosquitoes are vectors of way too many nasty Diseases that can affect people.Basically you will be creating breeding pools of Blood suckers capable of making people sick

[jwcarlson]

On behalf of your neighbors, I'd like to formally request that you not setup a mosquito farm.

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

Okay then.....thanks for the advice, that plan will be scrapped. I figured it would not be a problem if I did total collecting daily and dumped the containers when I could not, but I'd hate to be the cause of even 1 person getting a disease.

I'll change the plan to just searching out however many pre-existing larvae I can find. In which case only the third question remains: will Vitachem be insufficient?

[Discus Fever]

With so many options out there for live foods I wouldn't go that route. If you want a really good live food source for discus but do not use it as a daily feeding go with a white worm culture. I had white worms for a long time and fed them to my discus once every 3 days as a treat and they went crazy for them. I also used them to condition my breeders.

[brewmaster15]

Red wigglers...Eisenia fetida aka compost worms are really easy to culture and a good food.