What to do when you can't catch fish

[Brien]

Several months ago I had an out-break of Ich. Unfortunately, I lost most of my fish before I could start catching them. I was only able to catch a Chromis and Longnose hawkfish that have been treated and in my QT for months.

The problem is I have another Chromis and a Purple firefish still in the DT that I haven't been able to catch and therefore can't start the fallow period. I have a fish trap that has more or less worked well in the past but these two fish have caught on and won't go near it. I've tried moving the trap and most recently I stopped feeding my DT for a week thinking they'd be hungry the next time I bait the trap and I'd get at least one. But nope, they wouldn't go anywhere near it even with food in it.

So I'm trying to figure out what to do. I don't want to breakdown my tank to catch 2 relatively inexpensive fish. Neither fish ever showed any signs of disease throughout this time. I don't know, are Chromis and/or firefish prone to Ich? If not, then maybe I give-up trying to catch them and roll the dice adding the two other in QT. Any options other then catching them?

 

[Diesel]

I don't see any other option and keep trying.
Maybe draining to tank and see if you can catch them.
You can all do that in one day though.

 

[4FordFamily]

I drain my tank and remove rock and coral to catch them all and get it all done at once. It is not fun, I have done it to several 180 and a 125 full of coral and fish.

 

[YellowFinsReef]

There's really no other option other than treating the entire display tank with meds. But this is gonna destroy your rock, coral, and beneficial inverts. Also, reef safe meds don't really work. I would try to catch all fish from the display tank. Some fish seem to be immune to ich/velvet, but can still carry them such as wrasses, chromis, dartfish..etc. I've had wrasses that showed no symptoms of velvet despite that 90% of the fish had already been wiped out. The parasites need hosts for its life cycle, so as long as there are fish to complete the circle of life, adding any new fish may just be a death sentence for them. I don't even know how many times I've broken down my display tank to remove and quarantine infected fish. And like what others have said, you can also drain the water out - I've done both.

I think the biggest lesson I learned in reefing is everything takes patience in time and the fastest thing that will happen is death.

 

[eatbreakfast]

For the dartfish, in most cases they use the same bolt hole to hide. You could use a 1" hose draining into a brute can to siphon out the dartfish.

For the chromis, feeding with a net for a week or two without trying to catch it will get the chromis used to the net without fear. Once it doesn't have fear it will swim right into the net for food.

Without getting all the fish out ich will always be present, and therefore always a risk in the future.