Fish catching / netting stories anyone ?

[Cliff]

I can’t be the only one that finds it almost impossible to net a fish out of a aquarium. I swear that I could never work at a LFS just for that reason alone.

I’ve had to drain the water level down to 6” before I could catch any of my congo tetras. And those fish were easy as compared to trying to catch one of the plecos.

I’ve had even worse luck in my reef tanks with large quantities of rock in it. I even fasted my fish once for two days in a row and then put the food inside the net. This did not work as there was always at least three fish in the net and the one I wanted to catch was never any one of those fish. The fish that went into the net to eat kept sending food flying out of the net which ended up going to the fish I wanted to catch. This smart little fish stayed below the net to eat whatever sank down to him. I had to barrow a fish trap and feed all the fish inside of it for over a week before I could catch the fish I wanted to move to a different tank.

I thought it might be interesting to hear the techniques others use to catch fish. Both ones that actually work or attempt stories that might have been less than successful such as mine.

[Lady Hobbs]

There always seems to be one fish out of the pack who is the only one you can not catch. I could catch 10 in about 5 minutes then chase one around for an hour.

I have an 8" net that I use for everything. I don't care if it's a neon, that's the only net I use. I often stick it in the tank and with another net, kind of chase the fish in the direction of the larger net. But as you say, there is always one in the crowd who is a PITA.

Also, some a dummer than dumb. My cherry barbs are hard to catch and go like the wind.l

[Northernguy]

I learned long ago to empty the decorations,rocks and large plants before netting.It just makes life so much easier.

[Crispy]

I dread the day I hafta net the arowana. going to need a rubber fishing net forsure. I am terrible at netting fish even after all these years of trying.

[korith]

If I got fish that are hard to catch, I wait till nighttime when the lights are out. I leave the room dark for a while, come in flick on the lights and scoop them while they are still dazed. That works rather well most of the time. If that fails, I got 2 large nets. One net chases the fish into the other net, that works a fair bit of the time too. One net has white mesh which I think is harder for the fish to see, not sure though, the other is black mesh and they see it coming from far away. The only problem I have is catching fish sometimes in the planted tank, densely planted and some of them will hide out right at the bottom. Have tried using bottle traps with my cories and that has worked sometimes, have to keep checking the trap a few times an hour if you use them though. Small buckets work too!

[SwimFan]

Having worked at a lfs you would be surprised how quickly you become adept at catching fish.
None of those skills seem to come home with you though:(
I also remove all the decor, though I imagine this is more difficult with real plants?
I am thinking about starting to plant so that will be yet another obstacle.
My algae eater is easily the most difficult to catch, followed by my tetras. The super pregnant livebearers are the easiest:)
Nice thread.

[korith]

Oh I do have one tank that tests my patience, its a fluval edge tank. It has such a small opening in the top, to catch any fish you have to more or less empty the tank of all decor and then bend a net. I use to see those triangle shaped nets for the fluvals at the lfs and laugh at the price of them, thinking what a marketing scheme it was to sell product, but really a triangle shaped net helped. I just took a cheap net and bent it into the right shape:p

[Aeonflame]

I use a piece of eggcrate to partition the fish off from the rest of the tank This makes it a lot easier. For smaller fish I just stretch a stocking over the eggcrate

[Euporie]

Having worked at a lfs you would be surprised how quickly you become adept at catching fish.
None of those skills seem to come home with you though:(
I also remove all the decor, though I imagine this is more difficult with real plants?
I am thinking about starting to plant so that will be yet another obstacle.
My algae eater is easily the most difficult to catch, followed by my tetras. The super pregnant livebearers are the easiest:)
Nice thread.

I agree with you on the aglae eater. When we did a substrate change to a better substrate for the plants I had to drain the tank down to 2 inches of water before I could catch mine.

[toddnbecka]

I also strip down the tank first, one reason I like floating plants. I usually use 2 nets, a large fine-mesh for receiving and a smaller (larger mesh, moves through the water faster) net for herding. Quite often end up catching the fish in a front corner.