This seems quite a specific situation but maybe it has come up for a pond or aquarium owner.
I have a small pond which has one or two small fish in it (my mum sneaked two in there but I’ve only seen one recently). I also noticed there is a bucket with a mop in it out there which has filled with rainwater and now has mosquito larvae in it. I’m afraid I can’t resist the opportunity to commit genocide, just this once. But I don’t want to “waste” them, so I thought I could put them in the pond for the fish to eat. The problem I have is that the mop no doubt had some kind of cleaning chemical on it which must now be in the water the larvae are in. I don’t want that to contaminate the pond, which was supposed to be for wildlife, by just dumping them straight in there. I could get them out with a net then put them in clean water for a day or so. Does anyone somehow happen to know if that would be enough to ensure I do no damage to the ecosystem of the pond?
They will eat them, usually a small pond will generate enough larvae on its own making it unneccessary to even feed a small population of goldfish. I would strain them out and rinse them before feeding or just toss them preferably.
Apparently mosquito larvae don’t immediately die out of water, and can survive if they’re close enough to adulthood. If you actually want to kill them, cover the surface of the water with a thin layer of oil.
If the mosquito larvae are surviving in the bucket, whatever might be in it probably isn’t that harmful and will be further diluted if you put it in the pond, or you can just scoop them out and put them in the pond directly if you are still concerned. Also, do you know what might have been used as a cleaning product (I have a bottle of shower cleaner that just says drink a glass of water if ingested, no poison control or anything, so it doesn’t sound very toxic)?
My assumption is that mosquito larvae are more hardy than many other aquatic life, considering that we have hundreds of them and not much else right now.
Unfortunately, I have no idea what could be on the mop. I suspect it will be fine but I’d hate to damage the ecosystem. It’s only a very small pond and both ponds and aquaria can be very fragile.