Cheap diy spawn mops

[Sharon Goode]

No eggs! Can I leave mop in or do I remove it until I see them active again?

 

[Dave's pond Indiana]

I noticed the goldfish getting frisky early yesterday morning, so needed to act quick with a cheap spawning mop idea so they could lay their eggs. I went out to Wal-mart and purchased cheap acrylic yarn for $2.50 (buy the thicker one versus the thinner one). I decided to purchase a dark colored yarn so I could more easily see the light colored eggs. If you buy white or light colored yarn, seeing the eggs will be pretty difficult.

I needed something to float the yarn. So, with an ongoing excuse to drink wine for the betterment of my fishies (ahem!), I grabbed a cork and a plastic zip-tie.

I cut about 15 lines of yarn that were approx 26" long. I then folded them in half so in the pond they would hang 13" long. I neatly wrapped the half around the wine cork and zip-tied them tightly to the cork like this:

Here is what the finished product looks like:

You just dunk 'em in the water to get the yarn nice and wet. The yarn strings will float to the surface for about a day. After about 24 hours, you will see that they are water logged and they hang down into the pond. And your little cork will keep the spawning mop floating!

This morning I went out to look at the mop since I noticed the fish were acting all busy around them, and sure enough, they were covered in eggs.

So, there you have it, a cheap, DIY spawn mop!

I bought 4 of these on Ebay for $10.

 

[topofthehill1]

I want to say I made one of these last year and the goldfish used it and I had more goldfish than I ever wanted. But my pump is submersible in the pond. I could tell I was having flow problems so I had to take apart my pump to see what was wrong and whatever synthetic material that was in the yarn had wrapped around the propeller and the motor was very hot. I don't know how long it ran like that but I just wanted to put a word of caution out there. Little pieces of the yarn can come off and jam up your pump.

 

[taherrmann4]

I don't help of mop with my fish reproducing, they do quite well on their own.