getting multis out of there shells?

Sell them with the shells. I have seen people do this at the local swap. They have them labeled and maybe a picture so you know what they look like and inside the bag is just a shell that you would hope has a fish inside.

Agree with above, just remove the shell with them in it.

There is, what you will have to do is find some type of container that is big enough and tall enough usually one of those plastic large soup containers you get from a Chinese restaurant, place a piece of egg crate on top of the container, place the shell on the egg crate and when the fish swim out of the shell they will go to the bottom of the tank near the substrate, this could take a while but they will not be able to go back into a shell, i have used this method and it works..

If you do not know what egg crate is google the term its basically light diffuser and is available at home depot pretty cheap and you can cut a section to fit your needs..

could you just pick up the shell with the juvie (or adult) in it and pour out the water with the fish in it into a container. Or would the fish stay lodged in the shell without water in it? Wouldn't it be flushed out this way? I'm curious as to know since I'll probably have to fish my multies out sometime in the near future. Thanks.

No the fish will stay inside the shell, they wedge themselves in there when they feel threatened, the only true way of getting them out is to rise the shell way above the substrate, this fish is a shell substrate fish hence they do not venture into the water column to much and when they feel unsafe they retreat to their shells near or under the substrate this is why this method works..

If the method with the egg crate is put into motion what should happen is that the fish will come out of the shell and see the substrate through the egg crate and will be like oh crap retreat to the substrate just make sure there are no other shells for them to retreat to, so depending on how many shells you have you will need to place them all high enough in the tank for this to work.

Good luck, I have a colony of them in a 120gal tank and well i will probably never bother mine..