Catching fish out of overflow

[Tomoko Schum]

Has any of you catch fish out of overflow by taking the drain pipe out of it? I am kinda scared of doing this.

I have Flame Hawk fish and a female clownfish living in the left hand side overflow box right now. The hawk has been in the overflow for a few month now. I also have a high fin goby living in the opposite side overflow box for about a year now.

I don't know how much water is in the overflow box. It's an Aqueon 180, and it has two large overflow boxes. Taking the drain pipe kinda scares me since I don't know if the drain pipe is stuck in place or not. It is a slip fit drain pipe. I suppose I just need to gently work it out...

 

[BadFish619]

Find someone with skinny arms. Have done this twice. Or something like a back scratcher to scoop him up. Should also consider using some filter media to block any future mishaps

 

[rainmaker]

I have used a long net
I pull off the top section of over flow if your running the stock drain leaving the stand pipe in place
Also pull top from return pipe will give you room to get the net between back glass
Then it’s just fishing for them , most times they will swim into net
I’ve done this 3 times getting my wrasse out

 

[GWHouston]

Turn the over flow off and then remove the pipe. I use a small net and a glass scraper to guide them.

The stand pipe should free itself with just a little wiggle.

 

[mehaffydr]

I have removed my drain pipe and let the fish take a trip down into my sump and then I caught then in the sump. I have done this a few times and it has always worked.

 

[H@rry]

I don't have stand pipes in my overflows, just straight down to the bulkhead and drain. The fish that jump into the overflows get flushed into the sump before I miss them. The first time that I know this happened was when a Chromis showed up in a different tank that it was supposed to be in. It went down the overflow, through the sump, got sucked up in the return pipe, went through the pump, and took a different branch in the return manifold to another tank. It looked pretty beat up but eventually recovered. If someone else had told me this I would have been very skeptical about the story but seeing is believing. I've had this happen more than once. A big fish like a big Wrasse made it to the sump (twice) but was big enough to avoid the return pump. I caught it in the sump with a net once and returned it to home but the other time it stayed in the sump so long it died by the time I was able to catch it. I now cut a piece of styrofoam to fit the top of the overflow to keep the fish from running away from home.

I agree that you can remove the stand pipe and allow it to flush into the sump so you can catch it (maybe).

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Thank you, guys.

Aqueon/All Glass tank Mega Flow standpipes are really big and take up a lot of space inside the overflow box. I have a long-handled small net, but moving it around inside the box is very difficult. Besides these fish can swim amazingly fast inside the box.

I might bring up the courage and pull the standpipe. Should I drain some water out of the sump to make room for the water inside the overflow box?

I will direct the drain into a net or a filter sock so that I don't have to chase the fish in the sump.

 

[rainmaker]

My wrasse did go threw to sump once
He was beat up but recovered ,it was in my 180 also with hard plumbing ,but the other couple times I was able to fish out overflow with net
Takes a little while but can be done it helps if you can but a light under tank shining up the over flow box
The handle an net would reach to bottom of my box as well

 

[Tomoko Schum]

So I rescued my clownfish from the overflow with a small net, but I failed to get the flame hawk from there. The high fin goby is also too fast.

I decided that they can live out their lives in the overflow or stay there until I muster up enough courage to pull out the stand pipes.

To prevent any future incident of trapping an escapee in the overflow boxes, I made a contraption with a plastic gutter guard to cover up the box top. Since the return pipes are sticking up above the top of the overflow boxes, it does not look very neat, but I hope this would keep my small fish from jumping in there.

 

[Tomoko Schum]