California Mosquito Death Bog

How many Mosquito Deathbogs do you need depends on your home property setup.

Considerations include whether you have a fenced in yard, solid gates, and how big the yard is.

If you have a fenced in yard, your property is less than ½ acre, and your gates are solid, then you should be able to use 2 Deathbogs.

If one of your side gates is a wrought Iron you will need a 3^rd Deathbog.

Mosquitos do not like flying far off the ground so a solid fence or gate will mostly stop them from going into your yard.

If you have a pool toy chest or something low to the ground that collects water, try drilling a hole in it first to prevent the water build up.

If that’s not a reasonable solution, put a Deathbog right next to it.

Our personal setup needed 3 Deathbogs to work, we tried 2 and it did not work.

We have a ½ acre property that has 1 wrought Iron fence and otherwise a solid fence around the yard. 1 Deathbog next to the gate, 1 on the front porch, and 1 on the back porch.

Placing your Mosquito Deathbogs

Placement is important for the success of your Deathbog. We are trying to bring a perfect breeding site to mosquitos, so we need to understande a little of what they like and where they are comfortable.

They do not like wind, even small breezes can prevent many species of mosquitos from flying. Placing your Deathbog on a porch that is partially enclosed on one side or some other wind shielded location will help them naturally find it while hiding from the wind.

Sunlight is also dangerous for mosquitos, many species hide from the sun in shaded places, like porches, stairwells, and under plants. Putting your Deathbog in a location that is shaded in the afternoon will help you attract more mosquitos to it.

Line of sight

Mosquitos don’t generally travel very far or fly very high, they like to keep close to the ground to avoid predators and stronger air currents above our heds which is why they are generally ankle biters.

If you have a slatted iron fence they will fly through that from the front yard, bringing new supplies of mosquitos to your yard. Putting your Deathbog naturally in there path will help them find it quicker.

Watering your Mosquito Deathbog is the thing you MUST do.

Fill your Deathbog up to the level of the Pickerelreeds upper leaves. Every organism in this setup likes water between 6-8” deep, which is how much head room you have over the provided soil mix normally.

If your Pickerelreeds are above the rim, feel free to fill the planter to the brim or let the rain do it for you.

Water that is good

Rain water

Distilled water

Reverse Osmosis water (RO)

Water that does not work

Carbon filtered water

Fridge water

Tap water

All of these have too many nutrients, chlorine, Irons, and more for most locations in the country to work well.

Wrong water will potentially lead to algal blooms smothering your Utricularia, microbial community collapse, withering leaves, and more. We know because we started testing different local water sources to make sure that it was not viable to do so.

If your water is safe to use for aquariums, it is more likely to be safe for your Deathbog, please do your research on your local water supply and or contact us and we will help you find out.

Setting up your Mosquito Deathbog is quick and easy.

Step 1: unpack your Deathbog.

Step 2: Place your Deathbog where you would like it to stay. It is heavy when full of water and difficult to move.

Step 3: Pour the soil mixture into the bottom of the planter.

Step 4: Plant the rooted plant, generally Pickerelreed, in the soil mixture.

Step 5: Fill with appropriate water up to the leaves of the Pickerelreeds.

Step 6: Pour the microbe culture into the water.

Step 7: Release your Utricularia SP into your Deathbog to float freely. It does not root itself in the soil mix. It is a free floating plant.

 All year you will need to add water, when it’s hot and dry you will need more water as it evaporates.

For Fall and Spring as temperatures overnight go below 50F, your Utricularia SP will go dormant which means it will go a little grey and float just above the bottom of the bog garden. This is normal and it is healthy and fine.

HOWEVER, it does not eat mosquitos when it is dormant.

You have two options here.

1. Heat your Deathbog
2. Add a single granule of mosquitocide into the water once every 1-2 weeks.

Heating your Deathbog requires electricity, which not all Deathbogs will have access to outside.

The mosquitocide requires you remembering to add it in, otherwise you could run the risk of breeding mosquitos.

For those of us who have real winter climates, essentially everyone but Californians, we will also have to worry about the Deathbog freezing all the way through.

Again with the two options

1. Plug in your heater that you got earlier for keeping your Utricularia from going dormant.
2. Bring your Deathbog inside your home or garage.

Obviuosly the heater is nice since it just does its job, we have seen all the way down to 10F so far with our heater doing just fine keeping the Deathbog from freezing through.

Surface ice is fine and will not hurt any of the plants or microbes in your Deathbog.

You do not want the water to freeze all the way through since the Utricularia and Pickerelreeds will likely not survive the freeze.

Each Mosquito Deathbog comes with the following.

1 Whisky Barrel Planter 17" Wide x 12" Tall)

Bagged Soil mix

Pickerelreed

Utricularia SP

Microbe culture