A warning about mops and pointy fish.

I love mops (home made with green acrylic yarn) they grow great biofilm and my cories love living in them. Awesome for breeding rainbows.
I have run them for years and years and pretty much take them for granted.

Well I have just hopefully saved one of my new chubby plecos from one. It never occurred to me that fish with big ondontodes would get stuck in them but they will. I'm hoping he didn't exhaust himself to the point where he is going to die. He is free and in a flower pot now so I'm hoping he is doing well in the morning.

So if you are running plecos or other spiny fish you may want to pull mops from tank they are going into. I'm guessing big masses of java will not cause the same issue as the fish should probably be able to tear it apart?

 

Can you take a picture of one of these mops - i know this is off topic but I have some sterbai that seem to want to lay eggs and i wouldn't mind giving them a spot in the tank.

 

these are 2 mops aging in.


I now stick with forest green as the fish didn't like the one with the blue in it.
Both of those have now been pulled from that tank as that is the pleco grow out.

Basically I keep wrapping the yarn in a loop and then tie it really well in one place. after it is tied I cut the other side.

 

Is there a specific type of yarn that is safe to use in an aquarium ?

 

Is there a specific type of yarn that is safe to use in an aquarium ?

Acrylic.
Natural fiber yarns like cotton and wool will rot.

When I killed one of my mops by boiling in my war against the slime there were more than 40 sterbs in it that I had to dig out before boiling. I got lots and lots of holes poked in my fingers that day. No poisoning though.
My mops live like reefs do. It take a few months for a mop to come to life.

 

I've never tried mops before. I doubt my tetras or Keyholes would care too much, but I've got some Kuhli's going in that tank soon that I would think, would love something like a mop.

 

Hm, that mop is a pretty cool idea. Have you ever tried them in salt water/do you know if that's a bad idea? I'm wondering if my clownfish might enjoy one as a host site since I don't have any actual corals for it.

 

Hm, that mop is a pretty cool idea. Have you ever tried them in salt water/do you know if that's a bad idea? I'm wondering if my clownfish might enjoy one as a host site since I don't have any actual corals for it.

I have never heard of anyone using a mop in salt. The Acrylic yarn should be fine.
I'm not a salt person but I understand that in a reef tank everything grows on everything. I imagine a mop would get interesting over a year or two or would become a bristleworm filled horror show.
It also flows and flops around in a way that live rock doesn't so I'm not sure how that would workout. I wonder if the hard algae would change it. if it filled with hard corals that would also make it do "something".
If you have a free experiment tank it might be fun to try. I'm guessing some sort of coral, anemone, fan, etc coated Akira type exploding flesh monster after a few years?

 

I have never heard of anyone using a mop in salt. The Acrylic yarn should be fine.
I'm not a salt person but I understand that in a reef tank everything grows on everything. I imagine a mop would get interesting over a year or two or would become a bristleworm filled horror show.
It also flows and flops around in a way that live rock doesn't so I'm not sure how that would workout. I wonder if the hard algae would change it. if it filled with hard corals that would also make it do "something".
If you have a free experiment tank it might be fun to try. I'm guessing some sort of coral, anemone, fan, etc coated Akira type exploding flesh monster after a few years?

You're probably right on many counts there. I've got no corals & my peppermint shrimp seems to have the aiptasia well in hand. I'm thinking I might try a short mop just tall enough for the clown to use & not so dangerous for the shrimp to get stuck in. Hm hm hm...