What Should I Look For When Buying Mosquito Dunks?
Mosquito Dunks are a very straightforward product and it is strange how they weren’t on the market sooner. A mosquito dunk is a small tablet of pesticide that slowly dissolves in water, breaking the watery shells of mosquito larvae and killing than before they even become the bloodsucking critters we have come to hate. This is an easy, reliable, and cheap way to devastate mosquito populations and make them unlikely to ever come to bite you.
Once a dunk is in place, it lasts for 30 days preventing any mosquitoes from developing in that standing body of water. After that period, just put another dunk in and do the same until the mosquito season has passed. This is much more effective to do before the mosquito season starts, as dunks will not kill adult specimens. It will kill all mosquitoes in the water, but you will already have adult specimens that can bite you in the meantime.
Mosquito Dunks are made from pesticides that are not harmful to humans or animals, including birds and fish. The active substances include Bacillus thuringiensis (Bti), subspecies B. israelensis solids, insecticidal toxins, and spores. Bti is a very strong pesticide that is made up of microorganisms that produce the toxins that kill mosquito larvae. It is only toxic to mosquitoes, as well as a few other annoying insects, including flies, beetles, and moths.
The three products that we have tested all work on the basis of this formula as it has been the one that has shown consistent results for all types of mosquitoes and in all environments. There are some differences in how they are handled and it is good that there are multiple choices to keep the other manufacturers in line, but these are the three that are guaranteed to work as described. Even though the products are described as dunks, plunks and bits, they are based on the same formula with the only difference on how you are planning to apply them to the water on or around your property.