OK - this guy has got to go

[Earl45]

I took a chance with a clown tang in my tank. The first few days, it wasn't bad. The little guy would get in all the other fish's faces but he wasn't being mean about it.


Now he is scaring off all my other fish. Everyone is having a bad time in the tank except that stupid clown tang, and he is loving it.


I have to get him out - but breaking down the entire tank is a heck of a task. This guy is fast too!

Does anyone have any suggestions of how to catch this guy without resorting to taking out all the live rock?

 

[weap0n_X]

What size tank do you have? Do you have any other tangs with it?

 

[fishdave739]

If he's that aggresive you might try one of the acrylic traps. I've had pretty good luck with them. Don't feed for a day or two and he'll go right in there!

 

[artnsx]

what kind of acrylic traps? do they sell them online ?

 

[jmaneyapanda]

I think aquarium specialty has some- Scott there is a great guy and will set you up. There is a lot of manufactured traps, its just a matter of getting the fish used to them.

 

[Earl45]

It's a 90 - no other tangs. Just an Anthias, firefish, a flasher wrasse. He mostly harrasses the Anthias, which is about three times the size of him. (the tang is about 1.5") He scares away the other two, who were always out and about before he came along. Now they hide in their homes.


So I get an acrylic trap? So... the chances of that catching one of my other fish are what? Even odds?

 

[Frankysreef]

u should buy that marine fishes book, before you get another fish... Will save you the purchase price the first time you use it...

Oh god If I ever had to break down my tank it would take two days...

I am real careful about the fishes that I put in there.....

 

[Earl45]

Hey thanks alot - so I take it you have no advice on how to solve this problem? Just preventative advice?

 

[Frankysreef]

U want advice ... here is some advice....

Measure the width and depth of your tank... make a frame out of 1x1's a square so you can slide it into the tank.

Staple some acrylic screen to the frame....

take the top off your tank...

figure out where the fish is....slide the screen into the middle of the tank, move all rocks to other side of the screen....

slowly move the screen tightening the area of where the offending fish is...

when the area gets smaller... use your net and scoop him out...

good luck

 

[marie]

I ran into a situation where I had to remove all my fish from my 175g tank. Rather then move any of the rock I just removed all the water.
I used 3 maxi jet pumps and pumped all the water into tubs caught the fish and then pumped all the water back into the tank. Took about an hour from start to finish and the corals never even noticed anything amiss

 

[jmaneyapanda]

with an aggressive species, a trick I have used it to put the net in the tank to get all the fish used to it. I then held a mirror up to the tank, and when the agreesive fish saw this, he could not resist attacking the "intruder". He was preety easy to net out at that point, because he was just attacking the glass at the mirror. I had to acclimate the fish to the net for several days, but it made my life much easier.