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Well I generally have my spouse do it...I'll admit he's better at it than I am

Theresa, I'd have to agree... "Hey Jorge, my black neons have ich, will you pretty please catch them for me " "Honey, that ram looks sick, can you please... " "]:| Do it yourself for once!"

I am getting better at it, though. Using 2 nets is a lot easier. I have a larger net that I keep stationary and a small one to move around between decorations and the like.

I recently got a job at a pet store that has a small fish section. A couple days ago my manager had me move fish around to make room for the rainbows and pond fish that were coming in. By far the easiest to net were the oscars and parrots, the harderst were the Africans and danios. I hope we never get any eels or loaches :%)

><>Dani<><

I have to so agree with Sham, yoyo loaches. 2 people, two nets, one mug and had to still remove all decorations.

Ofcourse, tons and tons of patience and energy

I always use a net to catch my fish, if they are fast or more difficult to catch, i just use 2 nets.
Lowering the water level is a great idea aswell.


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Thanks for the great ideas on DIY fish traps for home. Working for 3 years in LFS (where time is an issue)the best way is 2 nets. The worse fish to catch are Kuhli Loaches. You know those nets never fit flat on the glass or the edges are never quite straight.......

At work our tanks have deco and plants in them and when the FISH wont play my game and are making me look bad, i just start pulling down the deco bit by bit.

The best i ever did, was 2 1/2ft tank with aprox 30 goldfish customer wanted 1 gold, 1 gold & white, 1 bronze and a gold one with a black tail, got the lot in one swoop within 10 seconds. GOOD CATCH or when you get 40 fantail guppies and the customer wants the one in the middle of the school with that bright red tail and you get it first try OR they put their finger up to the tank just as your about to net it - guppies scatter everywhere Grrrrrrr]

Many exellent replies so far,
its greatly appreciated. Thanks

I've found that the two net method works well for me.
Lowering the water level has also helped a great deal.



Last edited by livebait at 30-Apr-2005 07:56

Hi All,

If you have trouble with catfish and them getting net snagged then try this =====>

Here is my alternative for a standard mesh net:

You Need

1 x Old net or new net if old is unavailable with a wire handle

1 x Strong Plastic bag, the ones we all get from the aquarium store with new purchases are perfect (if you ask nicely they will give you a few for free)

1 x Hole punch or skewer

1 x tube of silicon (glue may contaminate the water)


OK, What we do is cut off the mesh net completly

place the plasic bag in place of the old net with the seam of the bag facing the handle

cut down the seam at least 3 cm or one inch

fold the bag back onto itself around the net handle/frame

silicon the plastic to itself to create a new "plastic bag net" wait 48 hours for silicon to cure 1 week if you have pleanty of time

now once cured go nuts with the hole punch or skewer (within reason) to allow water flow at the desired rate be careful not to weaken the bag in the one area too much

and there you have it the Hollywood Plastic Net (patient Pending )

Great for my catfish as getting barbs caught stresses the fish and me out too much and using my hands got old quickly (anyone who has been jabbed knows what i mean)


Hope you guys find this useful!!!

- Hollywood


Last edited by Hollywood at 28-Apr-2005 01:46

I'm SOOOO glad someone asked this question as I was thinking of moving my Serpae Tetras this weekend and was wondering how long it would take me to catch the little blighters! I was going to go for the "get the boyfriend to do it" option but I might try some of the others suggestions first.

thanks FP!

One of my male betta's, is the easiest thing to catch. If I can even call it that... I put the net in the water, and it so enthralls him, that he swims right into and lays in it.... It's a great party trick...



-pamela

With some fish, I have actually placed some food in the net, pellet type, then wait for the fish to swim in after the food. Doesn't work all of the time, but does often enough.

Jim

---

Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. -- Mark Twain

*cough*

Feed them.


Then they are all up the top and occupied, and you can just scoop them up It gets the majority if you are fast enough.

Usually i bypass nets and just use my hands. Nets are too fiddly.

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

While not necessarily difficult to catch, trying removing a 2 foot pacu from a tank...water goes everywhere!

I feel sorry for the people at the lfs when I ask them to catch the hillstream loaches. The one guy always claims they are sold out so he won't have to do it. Some of those fish can stick to the glass worse than suction cups.

Is there a better way to catch your fish without having to remove all the decorations in the tank?

I think I need to buy a bigger net, or construct some type of trap.

Yoyo loaches
2 people, 3 nets, 1 cup, some bait, tons of patience.

Otherwise most of my tetras and so forth I just manage to trap with a net and put them in a cup. I have a 4cup measuring one with a handle. The big plecos are the easiest. They just scoot away from hand and before they know it they've worked their way into the cup(slightly larger cup for when I moved the royal).

One frequent technique is to use two nets at once to herd the little devils into one of them. (They are, after all, far more wary of a moving net than of a stationary one.)

As for the Difficult Fish To Catch Prize, the most diabolical I've ever had to deal with are Diamond Tetras. (Fish with vertically tall bodies have more muscles than thin-bodied fish, allowing them to swim and maneuver far more quickly in the horizontal plane -- which is why they evolved those tall bodies in the first place.) However, I've had store clerks tell me horror stories about Kuhli Loaches as the worst of all.

If you're not willing to remove decorations, big nets are a not always the easiest to use.. IME, they work great when there aren't alot of obstructions in the tank, but because of their size navigation is blah..

If you've got a clear bowl or container, herding the fish into it with a net is probably the safest and easiest way of catching the fish.. Also, as was mentioned, it's the least stressful (for your fish and you)..

If there's just no way that the fish is falling for being netted, baited into the open or bamboozled by your cunning stealth you can always give one of the DIY fish traps a try.. There are tons of diagrams online and they're fun to use in a fish geekish sort of way

[link=Example]http://www.floridadriftwood.com/fish_trap.htm" style="COLOR: #FFC0FF[/link]

Good Luck with it..

Looking at the picture in your profile, I think if you took out the two pieces of wood/ plastic roots you should be able to get them pretty easily. Count yourself lucky that you never had to catch giant danios... Took me an hour and a half once to catch 4 of them.

---

Back in the saddle!

Well I generally have my spouse do it...I'll admit he's better at it than I am He uses 2 nets and it works well, I'm learning

~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is water at the bottom of the ocean

Rast,
See my profile for my stock list.

The net I have is a standard green mesh, 4" diameter.

What do you mean a bigger net??? How big is the one that you have at the moment and how big are the fish you are trying to catch??

The bigger the net the easier it is to catch fish.