Catching a wrasse that's asleep in the sand.

[BrettDS]

Long story short, I'm in the process of removing all the fish from my 210g DT to let it sit fallow to treat for ick. One of the few remaining fish is my Christmas wrasse. He sleeps in the sand and tonight when I looked under the tank I am 95% certain that I can see a bit of his tail so I know where he is in the sand.

I'm a bit hesitant to dig through the sand to try to catch him because A) I don't want to hurt him and B) I'm not sure I would catch him anyway. I picture a wrasse flying out of the sand bed at 100mph when he gets disturbed.

Instead, though, I'm wondering about trying to place some sort of a bag or bottle above the spot where he is sleeping in an attempt to catch him when he wakes up in the morning. Has anyone tried anything like that? Any other tips or suggestions to try to get him?

 

[Rakie]

He'll just dig around that if he's trapped. Best to use a big net and try to get him to swim into that near the morning hours.

Don't feel bad if you spook him a little in the morning and he flies into the net.. Always remember, some people have had to resort to small barbless fish hooks to catch their fish... A little scare and flying into a net *probably* isn't as bad as a hook in the mouth.

 

[ca1ore]

Although the generally accepted practice is to not go hunting through the sand for these wrasses, if you are removing them from the tank there's really no alternative. I do this when moving leopard wrasses from their QT tank. Just gently move your fingers through the sand and it'll pop out.

 

[BrettDS]

Just gently move your fingers through the sand and it'll pop out.

But then what do I do? If I get it to come out while it's sleeping will it be easier to net than during the day? Because I have tried for quite some time during the day and failed miserably.

 

[Rakie]

But then what do I do? If I get it to come out while it's sleeping will it be easier to net than during the day? Because I have tried for quite some time during the day and failed miserably.

Have the net ready.

 

[BrettDS]

I managed to catch two fire fish this morning and now the christmas wrasse and a blue hippo tang are the last two fish in the DT.

The good news is that I was really worried about getting the firefish out, so I'm glad they are out, but the bad news is that I haven't even come close to getting the wrasse.

I may give in and try to dig him out of the sand tonight if I can't get him during the day today.

I got most of the fish at night, but the blue hippo tang wedges herself in a small crevice in the rocks to sleep. In fact, she's spent most of this morning there as well. I put some nori into the tank to attempt to get her out, but so far she hasn't gone for it.

 

[2una]

The wrasse is going to freak out more if you chase him around in the day with a net......just watch where he goes into the sand & scoop into the sand with a net is what i done when doing a tank transfer.

 

[dendrite]

I caught a vroliks wrasse while sleeping in the knew exactly where he had buried himself and placed a quart plastic container over the area and moved it slowly down to the glass. He awoke and swam into the container which I proceeded to move along the sand until the side wall of the tank then up the tank wall to the top. Actually pretty simple

 

[BrettDS]

Well, unfortunately it looks like this might be a bit harder than I was hoping. I decided to go ahead and try to dig up the wrasse this morning while he was sleeping. I could see part of his tail pressed against the bottom glass of the aquarium, so I knew about where he was, but as I attempted to dig for him I discovered that he is actually sleeping under a large base rock, so it doesn't look like I'll be able to dig him up or put a container around him while he's sleeping. I put a container above the sand in front of the rock in the direction I hope he'll go when he comes out, but it will just be sheer luck if he happens to come up into it.

I guess the fish trap is probably my best bet at this point. Although I haven't had any luck with that and any fish so far.

 

[DarkSkyForever]

Are your rocks not in contact with the glass? If they're resting on the sand, that could spell disaster when something burrows under the rocks.

 

[BrettDS]

Are your rocks not in contact with the glass? If they're resting on the sand, that could spell disaster when something burrows under the rocks.

The rocks are in contact with the glass, but they aren't flat on the bottom and this is a particularly large rock, so there is apparently a place for him to fit under there:/

 

[BrettDS]

And I got him. Just in case someone else comes across this, here is what finally worked. I covered half of my rocks with this nylon netting I got from hobby zone while he was on the other side of the tank.

He finally went over to the netted side to investigate. I put one net behind him (you can see it's handle in the back left of the picture) to prevent him from going back, then I was able to pretty quickly snag him with another net.

I finally have all the fish out and I can begin the fallow period

 

[marper331]

thats something new in the art of fish catching in the aquarium. Cool!!

 

[BrettDS]

thats something new in the art of fish catching in the aquarium. Cool!!

Haha... I actually came across the idea in another post here. But the problem I was having catching the last two fish was that they kept swimming back into the rocks to hide as soon as caught sight of the net. By covering the rocks with the netting I was able to keep them out in the open long enough to get them into the net.

I had tried this idea once before a day or two ago, but when I did it that time I tried using a much larger net to attempt to cover all of the rocks. It didn't work nearly as well because there were still 5 or 6 fish in the tank at the time and they were all hiding in the rocks while I was trying to cover them... I left one spot open in the hopes that eventually they would swim out, but even after several hours they were all just happily swimming away under the net. Covering just one side while the remaining fish hid in the rocks on the other side seemed to work much better. It was also considerably easier working with the smaller piece of netting rather than trying to get a 7 foot long piece of net into the tank and over the rocks.