Spawning mops work miracles!

[bekateen]

So I made my first spawning mops this weekend and I put two in my 36-gallon community tank. This morning I awoke to see a few Cory eggs in the mops. I didn't have time to isolate the mops this morning, so after work I removed them to a separate hatching tank. The visible eggs were gone by now, but I hoped beyond hope that other eggs were buried inside the mops.

Fast forward just one hour. What do I discover? A full grown female

Apistogramma agassizii

swimming in the hatching tank! I never dreamed the mops would work so fast, or that the eggs would hatch out a completely different species of fish. Yippee!

... Nor did I dream that a female Apisto would be so stubborn as to snuggle itself inside one mop and hang on as I lifted the mops out of water, drained their water back into the big tank and carried the mops (in air) to the hatching tank...