Whoever said damsels were hard to catch.

Borrow a lionfish.

 

Use two nets, one in both hands, after you have made them fat and happy with food and confined them with egg crate.;D;D

 

I find going in at night is a good strategy. Most fish are "drowsy" and react much more slowly at night. This also reduces stress to other fish in the tank.

A big net also helps

 

Operation "Catch damsel(s)" is a go. I'm going to use a gravel vacuum tube with a string on one end and food in the far end of the tube. When the fish go in for the food, I'm going to yank the string...

That's the plan anyway.

P.S. From now on, I'm buying only the fish I WILL keep.

 

I made the mistake of cycling with two damsels also. Couldn't catch them. Finally broke down and took all the LR out of the tank to get them....

Caught one and put him in my 10 gal DT.

Never could find the other one. So I put the LR back in the tank... and bang there he was again. He must have been hiding in some hole in the LR. Unbelievable that he survived hours and hours out of the tank.

I tried to catch him again, but have never gotten close. He isn't being a problem, so I figure he's now 'family'.

Good luck....

M

 

last time i moved my tank i couldn find my damsels chucked my lr in a bin for a couple of days when i went and opend it there they were floating at the top really gross actually i dont bother putting them in n e more chromis are alright least there pretty passive

 

Has anyone heard of slurp guns? I use them in wild collection. They are very effective.

For those who have never heard of them: they are made of a clear plastic tube with a plunger inside. When the plunger is pulled upward, water, and hopefully the fish, is sucked into it. Same way many predatory fish catch their prey

 

i think by slurp gun your talking about what i would call a yabbi pump we use them to pump yabbis out ofthere holes in ams and rivers

 

I use bottle fish trap to catch my checkerboard wrasse in reef tank full with fragile SPS. I place a medium size bottle with wide opening where the wrasse likes to go. Cover the opening with sand and place a few pieces of live rocks in the bottle. Place food in the bottle using turkey baster. 15 min later, he was in my trap and I simply covered the opening with fish net. It was quite uneventful if you set the trap right. Make sure to wait until he is all the way in before making a move, otherwise, he will escape.

 

I find damsels easy to catch and usually cycle with them... this method takes longer to setup than catch...

take a gatorade or vitamin water bottle cut off the top third and stick it into the bottom part inverted. now drop a BUNCH of food in there and set it inside the tank... damsels will swim right in usually...