Cant get melanurus wrasse out

[mottomegl]

So i had a ich issue about a month ago and about two weeks ago i finally got all my fish out but the melanurus wrasse and for the last two weeks i have tried to get the wrasse i have tried fish traps and nothing has worked it always ends up in the sand were i cant find it so i will continue trying to get the wrasse out but my question is if i cant get it out and i am keeping all the fish out tell march will ich be a issue when i put fish back in march can just one wrasse keep the ich issue going were it will be a big issue i am running three uv on the tank right now so on a 200 gallon tank i am running a 15 watt a 36 watt and another 18 watt

 

[Tired]

Yes, one fish can absolutely keep the ich going. You need to have the tank completely fallow so the ich can die out.

Do you know where in the sand it goes? You could comb through the sand to get it out.

What traps have you tried?

 

[blitzkragz]

I wanted my melanarus out for a different reason (he ate all of my peppermint shrimp). I siphoned out all of my sand and put a bowl of sand in the tank. The very next night he slept in the bowl and all I had to do was remove the bowl and put it into the sump.

Also note the 74 day timer doesn't start until you get the last fish out.

 

[Chrille26]

I am not sure how your aqua scape looks, but when I had to remove a foxface some time ago, I used plastic lids to narrow the space where the fish could swim.
If you can, maybe try to corner the wrasse and then net it out of the sand where it is forced to burrow?

 

[William Mumford]

Bottle trap

 

[mottomegl]

I already took the aquascape apart to get al the other fish out and it just went in the sand i have tried a bottle trap no luck iam now triying a container and hoping that he will go in there when i put food in there and i have a net ready to close up if he does but there is 120lbs of sand in there

 

[blitzkragz]

If siphoning/bowl technique isn't an option, its time grab a chair and some popcorn, and sit and watch the wrasse just before lights out.

He will hover and circle the area he intends to call bed as the lights are ramping down, when he dives in you can use some sort of scoop on the spot to get him out.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Trap best bet

 

[DrMMI]

When I had to go fallow, my yellow coris wrasse and melanarus wrasse were the last two fish I had to find. I drained most of the water, took all the rock out of my 260 gallon tank, and literally started to comb through the sand bed with a big fish net. I got lucky that I only had to through the 1st third before I found them both. But as soon as I got close, they popped right out and I grabbed them with the net.