catching fish in a reef tank

[conner]

I have a candy hogfish that gets more vicious every time it grows. both ways. now i could really use some info on how to get it out of my tank. so far it has scared my chalk basslet and six line wrasse into hiding and it killed my rainfords goby. any info would help, thanks!
conner

 

[israelnajar]

Try making a fish trap with a two liter soda bottle. Cut the top off and invert it into the bottle and then put bait in it. Try netting it after lights out when it sleeps. Or you could also try hook line and sinker...well as a last resort anyway.

Hope that helps.

 

[ksquared]

Actually, the last resort might be spearfishing...

Seriously, catching active fish like hogfish and wrasses in any tank with rock in it is a frustration dream, in my opinion.

Short of removing all rock from the tank and using an acrylic partition to segment the tank, the only luck we've had catching those types of fish in our 185g reef tank was with a six-foot seine net that we draped over 3/4 of the rock and try to get the fish to swim over it. That fun and messy exercise was successful after about four hours of dedicated obsession.

Good luck! Let us know how you fare.

 

[conner]

i caught the hogfish! on tuesday night with the bottle trap. i put it in my fuge and on wednesday it took my an hour to catch it in my refugium because it kept sneaking under the protein skimmer plate. but it's gone, along with a swimming bristleworm that has eyes that fell out of my algae in the fuge. so if somebody wants a 3 inch candy hogfish go to Coral Island.