I hate sargeant majors!

[skennelly]

I need help removing a sargeant major from my reef tank. I made the mistake of purchasing him last year and he is a bully in my reef tank. He is picking on my clowns and angel fish and I can't take it anymore.

does anybody have an ideas on how I can catch this fish? He is very fast and there is no way I can catch him with a net.

any suggestions are appreciated.

thanks,
Sean

[grubbsj]

After 4 days, (about 8 hours) of trying to catch a problem fish, I got out the 5 gallon buckets, and began taking out all of the coral, rock, & PHs until he had no where to hide.....

Good luck!

[m_lacom99]

Unless your really lucky, and i mean REALY lucky, a tare down is about the only thing i can think of. I got rid of a damsel in my 20 and took about every peice of rock out. And back in the day i wanted to get rid of a yellow tang in a 120 gal FOWLR, i took some LR out then moved the rest to one side and seperated the tang from the rock with some egg crate then when he had about 6" of space left against the glass i used a net to get him.

HTH a little

Marc.

[fishflyer]

I also had to tare dowm my 15 to remove my domino damsel. When I had to remove my clarkie clown from my 55 I used a piece of acrylic to separate him on one side of the tank with minimal disruption to the aquascaping then net em.

[amcarrig]

Well, it wasn't a damsel for me but a 4-line wrasse but the bottom line is, I had to tear down my 90 gallon to catch the rat b*stard

[inwall75]

I've used Boomer's trick before. Worked well for me.

take a standard fish net, square wire frame type, remove the netting from the frame and replace it with a plastic fish bag, like the ones pet shops use to bag fish.The refractive index of the plastic is about that of seawater, so the fish don't see it, whereas they see the white green or blue nets. For different size frames, just use differrent size plastic bags. This is how I used to train pet shop employees how to catch fish. Tip submitted by: Bill Wing

I've also modified it before for extremely skittish fish. Take a hole punch and punch several small holes in the bag so that it can move through the water quicker. Then put some fish food right in the bag for a couple of days. After a couple of days when the fish is going right into the bag to eat, give it the surprise of a lifetime.

[tooconceited]

They sell acrylic fish traps that are supposed to almost invisible underwater. Have people tried these with no success? I also am looking to get rid of a damsel and am curious about methods. The traps I saw were like $30 but if you had a lot of rock work it might still be worth it.

[amcarrig]

Originally Posted by tooconceited

They sell acrylic fish traps that are supposed to almost invisible underwater. Have people tried these with no success? I also am looking to get rid of a damsel and am curious about methods. The traps I saw were like $30 but if you had a lot of rock work it might still be worth it.

Fish traps are touch and go. If I was to use one, I'd leave it in the tank, unbaited, for a week so that the fish get used to it being there. During that week, I would not feed the fish to ensure that they're good and hungry by the time I bait the trap. Then, bait the trap and be prepared to watch the tank for a few hours and hope that the s. major takes the bait. I've never tried what inwall suggested but I'd definitely consider giving that a try before spending $30 on a fish trap.

[Dustin75]

When I removed my damsels I waited until the lights had been out for about 4 hours, the fish were "asleep", and caught them in a net. But I have also used a clear plastic container, similar to a three liter soda bottle, I cut off the top and inverted it into the bottle base, baited it and waited several days. HTH
Dustin

[sssnake]

Originally Posted by m_lacom99

..i took some LR out then moved the rest to one side and seperated the tang from the rock with some egg crate then when he had about 6" of space left against the glass i used a net to get him.

HTH a little

Marc.

+1