Best way to move a powder blue from a reef???
 

HI there.

I have a friend that needs to remove a powder blue from her full blown reef tank and is wanting to do it without pulling it all apart?

Any ideas? He is still pretty little about 4 inches but just scared enough to run from the net or anything else for that matter.

you can try and get him in his sleep, try to coral him into the net with something else or get a fish trap, although I don't recall seeing anything that specifically will work with a tang.

the only way i could get mine out was a fish trap. fed inside the trap only. after 3 days he was the first in for nori, and boom had him. i wasted countless hours trying to get him with nets

As stated build a trap, I built this one which worked very well.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k3...rojects007.jpg

It hangs on the side of my tank and using a long string I can slam down the trap door. It has a feeding hole on the top so I can easily place food inside the trap.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k3...rojects006.jpg

Made catching fish pretty easy for me

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k3...rojects008.jpg

The key is to leave the trap in place for a while to gain the trust of the fish, start feeding through the trap and eventually the fish will love going inside, then you pick your moment and bam.

If the fish is still small the best thing is an inverted Pop bottle with an air pipe at the bottom for food adding with the suringe.
I did not belive it my self before , but it worked like a charm for me.
It took longer to built one than to catch the fish !

And after i got it in, the trap is so transparent that lemon peel angel was still eating when i pulled the trap up to the serfice.

With heavy traps it will take days to get fish acustomed to it , piop bottle works in 30 min.
hth

I caught my lavender tang (he's small 2-3") in a little feeding cup that I use to scoop up tank water with to unthaw the frozen mysis in. I wasn't trying to catch him, he just swam in as I was lifting the cup out. Luckly I noticed right away and got him back into the tank with no problems.