Catching 30 Fish in a 265 .... Open to Suggestions

[ca1ore]

Seems pretty clear that I'm going to have to remove all the fish from my 265 display because of ich! I have a reasonable plan for how to house them for 12weeks, but not one for how to easily catch them .....

I've made the observation before that there really is no such thing as an uncatchable fish, just an aquarist unwilling to do what's necessary to catch it Now I find myself on the pointed end of that advice.

I would really prefer to not have to completely dismantle the reef structure, though I accept that it may be necessary. I just ordered one of those Aqua Medic fish traps, so will see how that works out initially. My tank is also open in the middle, so an egg-crate barrier should make it possible to isolate most fish towards one end of the tank.

Any other suggestions welcome!

I'd also welcome any suggestions on how to best QT leopard wrasses and a mandarin? I do have a 30L setup as a full reef tank, with live rock and sand, so I could house them there for 12 weeks, but treatment would be problematic (I could use CP, but that would presumably kill all the pods; OK for the wrasses because they eat frozen, not so good for the mandarin). Given these fish are not particularly susceptible to ich, I wonder if I could just house them there but not treat them? Would be a risk though!

Anyhow, here is a picture of the tank.

 

[HumbleFish]

You can use CP on the Mandarin. That's how I QT'd my pair. I fed them Nutramar Ova 2x daily while they were in QT (6 weeks), and they seemed OK with it. But 12 weeks without pods might be pushing it.

As for the wrasse, I probably wouldn't use CP on him as so many have had negative results mixing the two. But copper should be fine, or TT if you wanted to be super safe.

Sorry... don't know what to tell you about catching all the fish. One "trick" I've read about (but never tried) is digging out a hole in one corner of the tank and then slowly draining the tank; trying to force all the fish into the hole so they're easy to catch.

 

[ReeferBill]

Instead of using egg crate to separate tank into 2 sections use a net .then chase the fish with your fishnet into the bigger net that separates the tank. Just like scuba divers do when catching in real reefs . Make sure the big net is loose so fish cannot swim out of it and back into rock.

 

[mgraf]

One at a time!

 

[Reefahholic]

look at the sticky above ^^ by Sk8r.

 

[lagatbezan]

you can make a fish trap and set it in the tank and feed in it for a couple of days. I was able to catch all my fish in my 180 within a couple of hours this way. this is how I made my own trap.

[/URL][/IMG]