How to catch sick or injured Fish

[ccoffel81]

Something I haven’t had to do yet after the fish is in the DT. My aquarium has many hides and swim through tons of rock. Just wondering if anybody can post here with their experiences without having to completely dismantle their tank. I hope this would be helpful to me in the future and others as well. Thank you for the future input.

 

[James M]

Water bottle trap or any fish traps

 

[Dmsick]

I spent some effort trying to remove a damsel from my display tank ( I was concerned he might have a parasite). I tried all the tricks I found on here and could not catch him! I bought a fish trap, tried catching him at night when he was "sleepy", tried the flashlight in the eyes trick. Nothing worked. I did not try the small barbless fish hook which I've read about. Finally I gave up and treated the whole tank with no ill effects to anyone thankfully. If I really needed him out, I would have had to remove all the rock and lower the water level. I suppose I could have left the fish trap in longer but I'm pretty sure it would have caught any of my other fish before it caught the one I needed haha.

 

[Txfish1]

Only thing that worked for me was netting right after lights out while damsel was a little 'Stunned'. Damsel would not enter fish trap

 

[Denisk]

Unfortunately it’s never easy. The bottle trap is one idea but can be very time consuming. However it’s the only one where it doesn’t requiring taking rock out, draining the display, and or messing up corals/knocking them over with a net.

The one that has worked for me best, is to go fishing. Literally!!!! You buy these super tiny hooks and you literally go fishing. It may not be the ideal route but I’m not one those people who are going to take a part a display just to get a fish out.

“For everyone’s information no fish has ever gotten hurt”

 

[Dmsick]

Only thing that worked for me was netting right after lights out while damsel was a little 'Stunned'. Damsel would not enter fish trap

My lights are on a ramp cycle so they slowly dim out over an hour or more. I tried the flashlight thing at night after the lights had been off for a bit but the Damsels are active even then. When I shined the light on them they started swimming right away! If it had been one of my clownfish or my foxface, I'd have had no problem. If I need to try again I will give it a shot.