Wow, what great help you've both been! Seems like a sensible way to do it then would be to add the spawning mop for about 7-10 days, then move it to a small "nursery" tank, and when I do that, replace the mop with the "alternate mop". Then repeat the cycle every 7-10 days.
Is this a good way to do it? How will I know they use the mop instead of the zillion plants that are in the tank?? I can't be yanking all the plants out and moving them to the nursery tank (though that happened accidentally once - I took a bunch of plants out and put them in a "plant grow out tank" and next thing we knew, we had a bunch of little ones!). Is there a sensible way to leave the spawning 'stuff' (plants, mop, or whatever they happen to choose) IN the community tank and have SOME way to collect and protect the fry (THEN move them)?
See, the problem gets into the fact that we aren't breeding just for the sake of breeding - all our tanks are show tanks that are community tanks (but with only one species of rainbows per tank). So it's all about keeping the tanks as much of a community as possible, and keeping them nice looking. I just would like to see some offspring manage to survive. Any kind of floating something that the little ones will migrate to? See how I can take anything and MAKE it complicated!!??
