A few months ago I bought a 2" huma huma trigger for my 40g, knowing I would one day need to get rid of him. After an upgrade to a 180 and the introduction of new fish and corals this little fella was an annoying little nusiance claiming most of the tank to himself. I decided it was time to remove him once he ate a $15 zoa polyp and he began rearanging my frags. It quickly was apparent that he would not be netted and a fish trap would take a week till he was comfortable enough with it to get caught. Tearing apart my new tank to catch this little pest was not an option to me.
In one of my classes we have been talking about reef fish population dynamics and the various studies that have been done on them, usualy involving capture of live fishes via tranquilization. As an alternative to ms-222 the common fish tranquilizer the use of clove oil has been used widely in collection and has no long term effect. It also has the benefit of costing $7 and is available at most helthfood stores in the aromatherapy section. Ms-222 costs about $25 online for 5g and I didnt even bother trying to find it localy.
To remove the fish without overdosing the tank and rendering all my fish unconsious or possibly killing them I did a quick search online and found that a dose of .05ml of oil per liter would knock the fish out in about 30 seconds and higher dosages wouldn't speed the process up. Clearly overdosing is a potential problem but localizing the treatment would allow dilution to the rest of my tank with minimal effects. I added 1ml of clove oil to 50ml of saltwater in a small bottle and shook it for a minute to achieve as close to an emmulsion as possible. Truned off all flow in the tank to have minimal water movement then took my feeding baster and sucked up about 10ml of this solution. The fish quickly retreated to his hiding hole when I put my hand in the tank, and I slowly basted the hole with the solution over about a minute. Quickly moving the rock to find him imobile stuck in a crack I carefully pulled him out by hand and placed him in a container of tank water. He poped back to life before I even replaced the rocks and looked ****ed off for being removed from his tank.
Obvious benefits are relatively ez removal of a pesky fish without tearing apart your tank. Also you're not adding some weird chemical but an all natural product. This technique probably wouldnt work in smaller tanks because of small water volumes but could if a decent water change was done immideately after if ill effects were seen. I haven't seen any adverse effects from the .2ml of oil I added to my tank but would be cautios adding more than a ml or two, I expect the skimmer has already pulled it out. The negative to this technique is your arm, tank, room and anything else in contact smells like cloves. I wonder how this would work in a tank break down or move, reducing stress on the fish and making it much easier to catch them. Good luck to anyone else trying to catch a fish.
In one of my classes we have been talking about reef fish population dynamics and the various studies that have been done on them, usualy involving capture of live fishes via tranquilization. As an alternative to ms-222 the common fish tranquilizer the use of clove oil has been used widely in collection and has no long term effect. It also has the benefit of costing $7 and is available at most helthfood stores in the aromatherapy section. Ms-222 costs about $25 online for 5g and I didnt even bother trying to find it localy.
To remove the fish without overdosing the tank and rendering all my fish unconsious or possibly killing them I did a quick search online and found that a dose of .05ml of oil per liter would knock the fish out in about 30 seconds and higher dosages wouldn't speed the process up. Clearly overdosing is a potential problem but localizing the treatment would allow dilution to the rest of my tank with minimal effects. I added 1ml of clove oil to 50ml of saltwater in a small bottle and shook it for a minute to achieve as close to an emmulsion as possible. Truned off all flow in the tank to have minimal water movement then took my feeding baster and sucked up about 10ml of this solution. The fish quickly retreated to his hiding hole when I put my hand in the tank, and I slowly basted the hole with the solution over about a minute. Quickly moving the rock to find him imobile stuck in a crack I carefully pulled him out by hand and placed him in a container of tank water. He poped back to life before I even replaced the rocks and looked ****ed off for being removed from his tank.
Obvious benefits are relatively ez removal of a pesky fish without tearing apart your tank. Also you're not adding some weird chemical but an all natural product. This technique probably wouldnt work in smaller tanks because of small water volumes but could if a decent water change was done immideately after if ill effects were seen. I haven't seen any adverse effects from the .2ml of oil I added to my tank but would be cautios adding more than a ml or two, I expect the skimmer has already pulled it out. The negative to this technique is your arm, tank, room and anything else in contact smells like cloves. I wonder how this would work in a tank break down or move, reducing stress on the fish and making it much easier to catch them. Good luck to anyone else trying to catch a fish.
