How to Make a Spawning Mop for Your Tropical Fish

Many tropical fish lay their eggs in thickets of aquatic plants. While real aquatic plants offer many advantages, sometimes you want to encourage your fish to spawn when there are no natural plants available. Very low cost "spawning mops" can be made easily at home. One advantage of spawning mops over natural plants is that the spawning mops can be sterilized in boiling water. Next time you want to breed egg scattering tropical fish, but have no live aquatic plants available, try your hand at making and using a spawning mop or two. It's easy!

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A skein of dark colored acrylic yarn
• A medium sized book to wrap the yarn around temporarily
• Scissors
• Optional - A cork
• Optional - A rock

1. Obtain a skein of dark colored acrylic yarn.

2. Find a medium sized book that you can use temporarily to wind your yarn around.

3. Cut a piece of yarn about 12 inches long and lay it across the center of the width of your book. This piece of yarn will be what you use to tie the mop together.

4. Start winding yarn around the height of the book. Be sure to keep the first piece of yarn that you cut in its place. The number of times you wind the yarn depends on how thick you want your spawning mop to be. For your first try, wind about fifty loops. If you want something thicker, use more winds. If you want something thinner, try fewer winds.

5. Use the first piece of yarn that you cut to tie the yarn that is laying on top of it together. Pull it tight.

6. Cut the loops on the opposite side of the book apart. You can cut them all at the same time. What you have now looks like a tassel.

7. Cut another piece of yarn and tie it around the top of the tassel, about an inch down from where the tie point is. It will now look like a tassel with a small ball at the top.

8. Trim up the loose ends at the bottom of the tassel (only if you want to...it doesn't really matter...).

9. Boil the spawning mop in water to sterilize it. That's it! You're done! Next time you want to spawn egg scattering tropical fish but don't have live aquarium plants, give the mop a try. You can tie it to hang it from the surface, or leave it loose.

Tips & Warnings

• If you want a floating mop, tie a cork to the top of it. If you want a sinking mop you can weigh it down with a rock.
• Experiment with different lengths of spawning mops. Also try different numbers of turns of yarn.
• Try putting a mop at each end of your spawning aquarium tank.
• These same mops can be used for spawning goldfish.
• Don't forget to clean and sterilize your spawning mop after each use.