Fish in Overflow and Sump, Retrieval and Prevention

[Hugh Mann]

I thought my moray was eating my new fish, but nope. Today I found 3 in one of the corner overflows and 1 in the sump, just hanging out.

My overflows have an eggcrate grill at the top of the weir, and a lid with minimal jumping room. How the heck they got in there, I don’t know. They’re pretty small, so maybe slipped through the gaps while sleeping or something.

Months ago my little neon goby also went for a ride to the sump.

Anyways. Anyone else ever have this problem? What could a person do to prevent this in the future, or just a fact of life until they’re grown up?

The sump chromis will be easy to get. The overflow chromis though, I can hardly fit a net in there. Advice to get them out?

 

[dstockwell]

The chromis in the overflow can you take a small net and bend it into a V/U shape.

 

[Hugh Mann]

The chromis in the overflow can you take a small net and bend it into a V/U shape.

Well, I caught one, another swam to the bottom out of reach and the third went down the PVC waterslide to join the sump chromis.

 

[BirdFish5000]

This sort of thing has happened to me before; such a pain. I plum got lucky and was able to net them out; I wish you all the best.

 

[Dorinda]

I thought my moray was eating my new fish, but nope. Today I found 3 in one of the corner overflows and 1 in the sump, just hanging out.

My overflows have an eggcrate grill at the top of the weir, and a lid with minimal jumping room. How the heck they got in there, I don’t know. They’re pretty small, so maybe slipped through the gaps while sleeping or something.

Months ago my little neon goby also went for a ride to the sump.

Anyways. Anyone else ever have this problem? What could a person do to prevent this in the future, or just a fact of life until they’re grown up?

The sump chromis will be easy to get. The overflow chromis though, I can hardly fit a net in there. Advice to get them out?

Yes, I bought for a couple bucks a roll of plastic gutter guards. Just cut what you need and put it in your overflow till your fish gets bigger.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I thought my moray was eating my new fish, but nope. Today I found 3 in one of the corner overflows and 1 in the sump, just hanging out.

My overflows have an eggcrate grill at the top of the weir, and a lid with minimal jumping room. How the heck they got in there, I don’t know. They’re pretty small, so maybe slipped through the gaps while sleeping or something.

Months ago my little neon goby also went for a ride to the sump.

Anyways. Anyone else ever have this problem? What could a person do to prevent this in the future, or just a fact of life until they’re grown up?

The sump chromis will be easy to get. The overflow chromis though, I can hardly fit a net in there. Advice to get them out?

I have netting at the overflow and top for snail prevention into overflow but works also for fish.
A 2" brine shrimp net works well for capture

 

[Hugh Mann]

Yes, I bought for a couple bucks a roll of plastic gutter guards. Just cut what you need and put it in your overflow till your fish gets bigger.

I picked up some gutter guard and installed it. Looks like it should do the trick.

The hard part is proving to catch the dang things. I might just have to unscrew the drain pipe and siphon out most of the water to catch it.

 

[Cichlid Dad]

I have a peppermint shrimp in my sump, found him the other day. Now I have to tear the sump down to get him. Good excuse to do sump maintenance lol

 

[Hugh Mann]

Well. I have installed the guards, though I gotta muck with them a little bit as they’re impeding flow, had to cut back the return pump.

Successfully retrieved all but one sump chromis. That last little bugger, couldn’t catch it at all. Must’ve scared it into hiding in my sump rock, as I looked for an hour and couldn’t find it.

Why must fish be so uncooperative at times?