How to catch a hawkfish...

since we're tossin negative karma here after my joke then here's the real scoop, their hard to catch, really hard, also hard to prove he actually killed the shrimp, may have just bean a conincidence that the trigger in your tank killed it and he picked up the piece with the antenna on it and thats what you happened to see

would say sorry about the loss of the shrimp but since you have 2 known invert eaters in a tank full of shrimp, honestly you had it coming

 

Yup.......LN Hawkfish are hard to catch. I had to get one out of my 75g. I had to take the rock out anyway......and that was a good thing, because I chased that thing alllllll over the tank. I would get it to the top, and it would jump. And they can jump pretty good. I was impressed. Good luck.

 

Thanks for all your help. I've been trying to catch him now for about 3 hours. I tried a trap and within, I would say, 2 minutes, I had my foxface caught. I thought I made a smaller hole that he wouldnt be able to fit in but I guess not. It's a happy camper now with a stomach full of food.

 

foxfaces are about as dumb as a door nail but god id hate trying to get one out of a trap, buddy of mine got jabbed by his and got put in the ER by it's toxin, i laughed at him but man i wouldn't wanna be him, then again he's the same dude that got a spine from a black long spine urchin shoved under his thumb nail almost to the cuticle

oh, keep that pistol shrimp fat and happy to, depending on the species in the wild their known for killing other shrimp for munchies but if you keep them fed their pretty safe in aquariums

 

I haven't had any problems with my pistol, he gets a little angry if anyone comes to close to his hideout, but since I've had him I haven't had any invery loss except to hawkfish.

I was really nervous trying to get that foxface out, especially because I made my own trap out of a water bottle. He barely fit in there, but he was having a field day with that big lump of frozen food, I think he ate so much he went into a little coma, he turned those nasty colors and sat on the rocks for about 10 minutes before he went on normally again.

I still haven't caught the hawkfish, I like him I just like my inverts a little more and I thought I was feeding enough so he wouldnt resort to eating them. I have one cleaner left, and his pretty big so Im hoping that he will stay away untill I can figure out how to catch him without taking my whole tank apart.

 

much as it may suck you may have to turn to the barbless fishing hook trick
or try and get him to jump out

 

I usually catch my fish with a ziplock bag. I get a big ziplock bag and cut the top off. Then I just scoop up the fish. Maybe dont feed it for a couple days and add a little food inside the ziplock and scoop it up when it goes inside.

Last reserve go with irafs suggestion