Fish Trap!

[crumbletop]

Hi all,

I recently had a pesky flame angel who ran rampant in my tank nipping at almost all of my SPS. I didn't want to break down all my rockwork to get him so I read up on ways to trap fish. I got the idea for my DIY trap from a really great thread started by Anthony Calfo on catching critters. I put the trap in my tank on Wednesday evening and fed only in the trap. Then I fed through the trap last night (Thursday) and I GOT HIM! So the trap worked like a charm. Total cost was around $2, mostly because I had a bunch of spare parts laying around to build this with.

Here are some pics of what I did:

I purchased a smallish rectangular food storage box from wallmart ($2), cut a hole, and installed a bulkhead toward the back of the box:

I cut out a piece of eggcrate big enough to cover the opening of the box to serve as a door to the trap:

I drilled two holes in side of the box, and attached the eggcrate with 2 zip ties:

Then I attached some string to the upper third of the eggcrate door, attached some pipe scraps to the bulkhead and ran the string through the pipe:

When you pull on the string, it closes the door tight! The eggcrate allows it to move through the water quickly.

I made the whole thing (pipe + box) such that the top of the pipe was above the water line, but low enough that I could close my canopy. I also made the string fairly long so it could hang down the side of the aquarium. To use the trap, I just left it in the aquarium and I dropped some yummy food down the pipe at feeding time. When I caught the flame angel, he just kept munching away at the food -- so it was a low stress capture.

Here is the Anthony Calfo thread where I got the idea. Many other capture methods are also documented there (i.e. GREAT THREAD!)

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=707656

 

[coral_reefer_25]

Sweet conTRAPtion!

 

[c_stowers]

Glad you managed to catch the terror! That is a pretty nice trap you got there. Now that your done with it, can I borrow it to get rid of my pest?

 

[crumbletop]

You bet! I'll try to remember to bring it to work with me on Moday.

 

[rcmike]

Cool trap. I built one out of acrylic with a sliding door that would close when you pulled some fishing line tied to a pin. I had rubber bands to close the door and it worked pretty well but would get jammed sometimes. Then the fish you were trying to catch would get terrified of the trap. Yours looks pretty foolproof and simple. I really like the tube idea to put food in. I may have to copy your idea.

 

[mamagoose45]

That's a genius idea, and one that I wish we would have thought of with our last tank... We had a blue damsel in our 60 gallon tank that was being a jerk, and we couldn't catch him to save our lives. We had to wait a few months until we broke down the tank until we could snag him. All the traps we came up with seemed like solid ideas, but none worked. It is good to know that someone beat the odds!

 

[crumbletop]

Thanks for the comments! Yeah, this seemed like it was worth a try and it ended up working really well. I just set it in the tank and basically ignored it hoping the fish would get used to it. Yesterday when I fed down the tube I noticed the flame start going in there and popping right out -- getting bolder and bolder each new time he tried. I had taped a manilla envelope (9x12) on the aquarium near where the trap was, so I snuck over there and closed the door on him! Now he's over at the critter

 

[Angela Short]

Aww Man, I just bought him



J/K :lol:

I did order a tiny flame from Ebay today to try to pair up my big male flame I got from Sean at the labor day sale. I have been reading up on pairing flames and it seems pretty easy if you for sure get a female. That would be cool to have a pair of flames and really not cool if I end up with a pair of coral eating flames!!!

Love the trap!! The zip tie door was a awsome idea!!