How do i catch and remove a fish from my tank ?

[mrpenguin]

I have a 70G tank with lots of live rock and a emperor angelfish that I wish to remove because I have a very nice piece of coral in there that I am scared of him eating it.
The problem is that the emperor angelfish is extremely fast and every time I come near the tank he darts back into the rocks.
He sleeps inside the rocks so trying to catch him at night wont work either.
I do not want to remove all my rocks just to catch one fish ... any suggestions on how to catch him ?

 

[EllieSuz]

See if your LFS has a fish trap. Many do, and will lend or rent it to their customers. Get the fish accustomed to seeing it in the tank and then put a favorite food inside. This is step #1. If that doesn't work, you can try a fish hook. There's a thread here somewhere that describes this in detail, but to sum it up, you file off the barb of a very small hook and bait it with a piece of raw shrimp. Sounds extreme, I know. #3 is to drain the tank. Anthony Calfo has directions for this online. Briefly, you make an indentation in the substrate forming a little "pond" and quickly, using as large a pump as you can, drain the water into a brute or similar tub. The fish (all of them) will be forced into one spot where you can net him. Remember, corals are frequently exposed to air for brief periods in the wild. Livestock like clams that aren't supposed to be exposed to air have to be caught and bagged underwater, of course. The trick to this one is to be quick and refill immediately. I was fortunate and caught an unwanted fish in about 10 seconds using the trap, but success depends on whether the fish is wary or not. There is a thread that discusses all these methods and maybe another member can retrieve it. Good Luck.

 

[jeffroberts1]

i'm using a trap trying to catch a regal tang with a trap using live brine , one problem is that my red sea salfin won't let any other fish to enter the trap. I thinking of just taking the salfin out to catch the regal.

 

[EllieSuz]

It's easy to catch the ones you don't want to catch, isn't it? The fish I trapped was a bully Chromis and he dashed in there to prevent any of the others from getting a bite, so I was lucky. Mr. Penguin, please let us know the outcome of your ordeal.

 

[rydr119]

Sometimes you can leave a net in the tank for a few days so the fish do become scarred of it and every day place the food in the net, then one day just slowly turn the net towards the glass when the fish are in front of it. I have used the traps as well with some very smart fast wrasses. It worked but it took like a week before I could coax the fish into the trap to even attempt to catch them. I have found that if I turn all the lights off in the tank and keep all the lights off in the house (during the day) So its pretty dark but you can still kinda see in the tank, then place a large net in the tank and rest in on the bottom and the front of the glass you can sometimes then herd the fish into the net using a long stick or whatever. I used the thing my scrapper attached to. Good luck

 

[mrpenguin]

Thanks .. I am going to find out if I can rent a trap and then let you know the out come.