Do's and Don'ts of getting a fish out of an overflow.

[Vapour1ze]

Hi all, I'm going to start this thread off by stating how to NOT get a fish out of an overflow area.

This was the first time this has ever happened to me. Yesterday I noticed my Flamehawk was missing. I was upset, my favorite fish, recently acquired, is missing. The fish my cat loves to watch. Then I thought, oh did my cat get him? No, impossible, she's afraid of the top of the tank. Then I thought well maybe he jumped out and the cat grabbed him. Looking all over the sides of the tank on the carpet, under the couch etc. No sign of him anywhere! Then I thought, overflow? I went under the tank and looked up, sure enough there he is! Swimming in the overflow! Lol!

I was really confused on how I was going to get him out, I Googled and read through some forums and saw some posts on siphon him out. Well this may have worked but I don't have access to the corner of the overflow behind my tank, let alone I can't see down in there because it's in the corner of the room and I can't get over my tank that far. So that was out. Then I read, pull the stand pipe and flush him down to the sump. Genius! Well, I did this with some help and I stood down in the basement where my sump is with a net over the drain. I had someone pull the standpipe upstairs, and let me tell you. As soon as you do this, so much water, so fast, comes down to your sump! It is insane! No where near the regular overflow flow rate... So instantly I'm panicking as water is flushing down to the sump and almost overflowing my sump I look down in my net filled with microbubbles and there lies the Flamehawk! In my net! Looking like he just had one HELL of a roller coaster ride! He was alive, and I rushed back up to the display and tossed him in! Alive and well he swam down to the rocks and looked pretty normal. I started up the pumps again and continued on like normal. Later in the day I looked at him and his top fin had some slight tearing it looked like. It is still in tact but looks a bit tweaked. I'm hoping this will re-grow, or fix itself? Not sure if that is possible? Any tips would be great. But I just wanted to share my experience and do not advise anyone on doing it this way. It does work, but I think I could have lost the fish, it was very fast and I think could have damaged the fish. I think if this happens again I will try to barely lift the standpipe and try to delicately scoop him out with hand if possible. It's just a very far reach and I don't think I could do it easily without draining the back side of the overflow entirely.

Looking to see what others have done....

I now have a screen top over the tank, I need to build a better one though.

It covers the overflow, but I want something separate to cover the overflow to prevent snails crabs from crawling in anyway, anyone have tips on overflow covers?

This is for a 93 cube... So one over flow, back left corner of tank.

Thanks!

 

[ca1ore]

It covers the overflow, but I want something separate to cover the overflow to prevent snails crabs from crawling in anyway, anyone have tips on overflow covers?

I'm in the process of trying to come up with a better 'mouse trap'. Currently I have a pair of pie slice shaped 1/8' acrylic covers that are zip-tied down to the front edge of the overflow teeth. No fish or snails are able to get into the overflow, so the design works .... almost. Problem is that my nerite snails crawl up and on top of the cover and then expire. I do use a screen top, and there is about a 1" gap between the screen and the overflow cover. I've been thinking that I need to put a raised edge on the cover so that there is no clearance under the screen for the snails to navigate. I just haven't worked out how to do such a thing (I'm a novice with acrylic, so bending it is beyond my skill level).

Extracting a fish from the overflow can be a major PitA; particularly if physical access to said overflow is limited. I had a potter's wrasse jump the fence on my FOWLR and I spent an hours cursing at the stupid thing before just pulling the standpipe and letting gravity do the job for me.

 

[sneeyatch]

LOL - I've done the same thing with a yellow wrasse - twice, same fish. You would think it would learn it's lesson, ya know? The first time, I pulled the standpipe and just netted it from the sump. The second time, it got wise and did the trip itself. It was already in the sump waiting to go back in the display, it even let me catch it fairly easily. After that, it never did it again.

 

[sneeyatch]

I'm in the process of trying to come up with a better 'mouse trap'. Currently I have a pair of pie slice shaped 1/8' acrylic covers that are zip-tied down to the front edge of the overflow teeth. No fish or snails are able to get into the overflow, so the design works .... almost. Problem is that my nerite snails crawl up and on top of the cover and then expire. I do use a screen top, and there is about a 1" gap between the screen and the overflow cover. I've been thinking that I need to put a raised edge on the cover so that there is no clearance under the screen for the snails to navigate. I just haven't worked out how to do such a thing (I'm a novice with acrylic, so bending it is beyond my skill level).

How about adding a strip of velcro - the rough side to the overflow? It works with nem propagation (keeping them in their baskets), they won't try to climb over the texture. May work well with snails too.

 

[FishN00b83]

I recently got a bartlet anthias out of an overflow that was in there for over 12 months!! I thought she was dead and sure enough during a water change she's starring at me lol

anyway I just drained my overflow to maybe an inch or two of water and put a small net right in the middle. I got a long piece of stiff tubing and scared her into the net and picked her up. kinda easy once I thought it through. the standpipe removal didn't even come to mind, I would be too scared of the fish getting stuck.

 

[ca1ore]

The standpipe removal didn't even come to mind, I would be too scared of the fish getting stuck.

Yeah, it only works with a small fish or with a large diameter bulkhead. In my case, the wrasse was small (it isn't anymore) and didn't seem any the worse for wear for the ride.

 

[gone fishin]

I keep some sand on hand for this. Over a period of time I will slowly add the sand to the overflow. Eventually the fish is pretty close to the top of the tank and it makes it easier to catch him. When done I use my shop vac to remove the sand. I have heard of folks using marbles instead of sand.

I have tried to add netting at the top but I never could get it to stay and the acrylic ended like Simon pointed out.

 

[SecretiveFish]

Fortunately we had finally hard plumbed the aquarium the last time I had to retrieve a fish. The clownfish is too big to fit through the bulkhead (previous time I had to retrieve a different fish, I ended up removing the bulkhead and pouring water in the overflow to get the fish to fall through the hole... that was difficult, messy and very hard on the fish).

So this time we got smarter. At the end of the overflow plumbing are unions with pipes that go into filter socks. We put a ball valve on a piece of pipe with the correct side of another union. I connected the closed valve to the hard plumbed union, removed the drain pipe (so now water stayed in the overflow chamber) and netted the fish in the overflow. It was surprisingly easy...

ETA: Siphoning?!? Goodness no... Having accidentally killed a baby axolotl while trying to siphon out detritus, I will never purposely siphon a live animal out of a tank. With my luck, the poor thing would get stuck in a kink in the tube, shudder.