Operation Trigger rescue

[bullit67]

I have a Sarggasum trigger that has managed to get in to one of my overflows he has been in there for over a week now and to my surprise he is still alive I thought he was dead as I could not find him. But I took another look today as I wanted to remove the body if I could to prevent water problems. And he is happly swimming around in the overflow so now I need some Ideas how to get him out it is a full depth overflow on a 30 inch deep tank. I dont know If I will beable to net him.

Any Ideas I am sure some out there has gone through this befor

[seanoman]

I have had this happen before in my old tank. What I did was, I turned off the return pump and then took out most of the water from my overflow. I left just a couple of inches in the bottom, so that the fish was not able to swim away from the net. If you do it quick enough, the fish don't really stress out that much. You just got to get them in a spot where you have just enough room for the net and scoop him quickly and put him back in to your display tank.

Hopefully I wrote that so you can understand. I know the first couple times this happened to me, I was really confused and got frustrated trying to catch it with the water level full. Finally after 3 or 4 times, I realized it would be much easier to take the water out so the fish couldn't swim away.

Hope it works for ya!

[untamed]

You can take advantage of trigger fish behaviour. If you can fit a small vase or glass down into the overflow, the trigger will hide in it. You will then be able to remove the glass and the trigger will try to remain inside rather than flee. Best if the glass/vase is small enough that he/she will be able to "lock" themselves inside the way that triggers do.

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Originally Posted by untamed

You can take advantage of trigger fish behaviour. If you can fit a small vase or glass down into the overflow, the trigger will hide in it. You will then be able to remove the glass and the trigger will try to remain inside rather than flee. Best if the glass/vase is small enough that he/she will be able to "lock" themselves inside the way that triggers do.

Yeah this is a great idea. When I went to catch my little Undulated trigger a while back, I couldn't find him anywhere, so I took some rock out of the tank. Still couldn't find him. When I started to put the rock back in the tank I found him lodged in one of the rocks that had been out of water for a few minutes.

Once they lock their triggers in place, they really don't like to let go.

[bullit67]

Well I got him out took a while turned off the return pump and taped a net to a long handled scraper and went too work. He is out and swimming around ate up real good never missed a beat

[fishytime]

*said in a William Shatner voice* Rescue 9....1....1. Nice to hear of a positive ending....good job.