Tips and tricks for netting?

[SnowHeart]

I have a heavily decorated 29g with lots of rocks, plants and wood around the bottom. I also have a couple of fish I want to net and move into a separate aquarium (a red-tail shark and a cardinal tetra). Because of the heavily decorated nature of the aquarium, and the fact that many of those decorations are rather solid (e.g., I could brush a plant aside but I would knock over a rock), netting these little buggers is going to be a challenge.

Anyone have suggestions, tips or tricks to make the process a bit easier, or is it simply a matter of patience and skill (or ripping out all the decorations)?

 

[liv2padl]

try netting the fish after the tank and room lights have been out for two or three hours. no room lights, no tank lights. fish should be "sleeping" and if you turn on the tank lights and they're out in the open, you'll have about 20 seconds in which to net them before they "wake up".

 

[SnowHeart]

I'll keep an eye out for those opportunities, but that may be difficult. With the abundances of hiding places, I actually have trouble seeing ANYONE when I first turn the lights on. The cardinal tetra may be a bit easier... he likes to sleep around the plants. Thanks for the suggestion.

Anyone else have some thoughts?

 

[tre8160]

Use two nets, use one of the nets to get the fish in to the other.

 

[z71silverado98]

after the fish are asleep is the easiest. just use a small flashlight to see what your doing, but try and keep the beam as far from the fish as possible and dont shine it in the fishes eye or it will wake up.

or use a large cell flashlight, temp. blind the poor guy and scoop him up w/ a net from behind.

 

[rrkss]

Feed the fish and while they are preoccupied with the food, you sneak up from underneath them.

 

[nanahachi]

thanks SnowHeart for asking, i've been having troubles netting a fish in my planted tank, where there are too many places to hide.

thanks to everyone for the good recs, i think i'm going to attempt the "while they're sleeping" trick.

 

[indiginess]

lowering the water level drasticaly can help too.... gives them less tank to run in....

i've noticed that if you dont succeed in the first few minutes, its better to try again a little later. reduces stress, and ups your chances. usually i catch the object fish in the first stab or not at all. (for a while, anyway).