help catching neon

[sid 201]

hi - one of my neons has small growths on its "nose" which i figure are a fungal infection (cotton mouth) my problem is that I cant catch the bugger without destroying my planted tank and stressing the other fish any suggestions please

I've tried a home made fish trap and caught almost every one but him :-?

[Guest]

You could put food in and see is it comes up and get it while it eats. I'm trying to catch my clown loach in a planted tank and it is near impossible.

[cichlid7]

ha you think they are hard to catch i have a 600L tank full of rocks and needed to catch a male bristlenose. now that was very hard and in the end the tank was empited so i could catch him it took about 6 or 7 hours

[Guest]

What really annoys me is that you can't catch the fish you want and all the other fish swim in your net and when you want to catch the fish that swam in your net it's impossible.

[Warren]

I use two methods:

1. Bait Catcher - can take some time but you'll likely get it eventually.

2. Red Light - wait until it's been completely dark for 30 minutes or more. Use a torch with red cellophane over it's end to spot the fish. Net it while it's sleeping. Neon's normally sleep on the bottom of the tank. Fish don't see red light or not too well at any rate. As long as you're a good aim with the net this method works really well without destroying the tank.

[MarkLB]

This is the first time I've heard of the 'Red Light' method......excellent idea. :bounce:

[Guest]

Yeah good idea I'm going to try that next time I need to catch a fish

[Warren]

I used to use it mostly when catching nocturnal fish. I've had either rocky or planted tanks with too many hiding places to catch fish during the day or to catch fish that normally hide during the day. I read somewhere that fish don't see red light (but don't know the accuracy of the information) so tried using red light at night so I could see my nocturnal catfish in action. This was how I discovered who was eating the Neon's at night. It's also the method I used to catch the pesky catfish responsible and re-home it. The method worked well but it's a little tricky at time to see properly. It helps to have two people - one on the torch and the other on the net(s).

The bait catcher method works really well to but you almost inevitably catch every other fish first... I use a lump of frozen food in the bait catcher.

[sid 201]

tried catching the little bugger last night but the neon's sleep in the weed and all i managed to do was rip up half my tank....