How to catch a fish!

[fmuakkassa]

I have been trying to catch an arc eye hawk fish in my 180g reef aquarium with a net (so I can add a clean-up crew) with no success! The fish is not super fast but can quickly hide between the live rock.
Any ideas about traps or methods etc. to catch it?

Thanks

 

[OrionGirl]

A couple...The easiest way is to tear apart the tank, remove all rocks and such. If that's not an option, use a large, clear bowl or tupperware. Herd the fish into the corner, and then scoop it up with the bowl. You can TRY putting the bowl in, and then baiting the bowl with food, and then getting a lid on the bowl while the fish eats the bait. Not sure how this would work with a hawk, though.

I don't ever use nets for our fish. I use the bowl method for evry thing--shrimp, crabs, angels, lions, eels, etc. The lionfish hates it and thrashes around, but he doesn't shred fins or get tangled in the net. Does scare the HECK out of whoever is carrying the bowl!

 

[FishBait]

This is pretty elaborate but here goes:

I have a friend that needed to catch a few fish from his 200 gal. He bought a clear, plastic tube with doors on either end. One door is tied to fishing line so he can raise and lower it from outside the tank. The first day he put the tube in a did nothing different than usual. The next day he put food in it and allowed the fish to swim in and out of it, never trapping them. Then the third day when they went into it he let the door drop and volla!

 

[ERRN7]

Egg Crate

If you have the space use an appropriate size egg crate to "cut down" the area the fish has to swim. I use this method to catch female's holding in my 150gal cichlid tank. Even if you have to move a couple rocks its not like having to tear down the whole tank.

 

[fmuakkassa]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Taking all the live rock out of a 180g aquarium is no easy task (especially when I have to disrupt the corals too). The trap idea means I have to sit idle waiting for the right fish to go inside (there are thirteen in the tank). I think the idea of dividing the aquarium in two is most appealing.

 

[fmuakkassa]

Caught the fish!

A follow up.

I tried to devide the tank into two using an egg crate but this did not work as the egg crate will float! I did remove some rock and divided the aqaurium into one thirds using a rubbermaid container cover and trapped the arc eye hawk in one corner. I still had to remove a lot of rock and move the corals around from one compartment to the other and some were placed in the refugium for a while. All in all it took me 5 hours to catch the fish (with a clean up of the tank and 30g water change).

Lesson learned:
NEVER PUT A FISH IN A REEF TANK BEFORE A THOROUGH SEARCH ON ITS HABITS AND COMPATIBILITY. This fish was placed by my LFS without me asking!

Now I can bring in more live rock to tame my nitrites and a clean-up crew of snails and crabs etc. without the fear that the hawk fish will eat them.

 

[Corax]

5 hour fight ehh? Ya got me beat =) I spent 30 minutes trying to get a coral beauty angel (no net cuz of the gill spikes), only for herding purposes) out of a bare sand bottom 29... Then I spent about an hour wrangling a 6" yellow tang (again, no nets, too spikey) out of a 55 full of rocks and other fish... The tang left the water 3 times on me, it was like deep sea fishing!