Homemade Fish Trap

sen5241b

Reef enthusiast
I need to catch my dottyback. There are some examples of using a 1 liter plastic soda bottle on the web. Has anyone tried this or got a n idea?
 
It's easy.

Trap.JPG


Cut the top off a 1 liter soda bottle. Use a steak knife. We're not building a space shuttle here, just hack it off.

Turn it upside down and stuff it back in the body of the bottle to trial fit. Cut a little off the neck of the top if you need, so it will slip inside the body of the bottle.

Run a big goober of 100% si8licone around the top part where it will contact the body of the trap. Stuff it in and let it sit for 3 or 4 days to cure.

Starve the fish for a day or 2. Put a couple rocks in the trap so it will sink. Put some food in the trap. Drop it in the tank. Don't feed the tank. If they want to eat, they go in the bottle.

If they refuse to eat, take the bottle out after about an hour. Drain it by poking a hole in the bottom. You can poke a large hole, so long as the dottyback can't fit through the hole.

Drain the food and water out. Leave the rocks inside. Stick it back in the tank so the fish get used to it. Tomorrow, try it again. No food in the tank. They swim in the bottle to eat or they starve.

You'll catch him eventually.

Removal? Steak knife. :mrgreen:
 
The dottyback swam in the 1 liter trap last night after only an hour or two. Seconds after I grabbed the trap he wiggled out thru the inverted nozzle. I'm thinking of a 2 liter trap in addition to the 1 liter.
 
Just run down to your local fly fishing shop and pick up the smallest trout fly they have.File the barb off,stick a split shot right above the fly,pop the top on a cold one,and wait for a bite:mrgreen:
Used that method several times with great success.
 
Just run down to your local fly fishing shop and pick up the smallest trout fly they have.File the barb off,stick a split shot right above the fly,pop the top on a cold one,and wait for a bite:mrgreen:
Used that method several times with great success.

I may have to do that! I have two of the plastic bottle traps in there and he won't swim into either! That fish is as fast as lighting! I have also considered dropping an M80 into the tank!
 
He's still not caught! Tonight I'll try putting live brine shrimp inside the traps. Some aquarists --as a last resort-- have dug a hole in the sand, drained the tank, take fish out of hole and then refill tank. I'm worried about what this will do to coralline, feather dusters and other inverts. I really don't want to take all the rock out and doing so would not make it a whole easier anyway because the fish is do incredibly fast.
 
Thx! I just took every single piece of rock out and he wasn't in there!!! He was just gone!! I dug my hand in the sand thinking he was buried. Turns out he swam up into a big conch shell and stayed in the watery suction part after I moved the shell to a bucket! As I'm putting the shell back in the tank he leaps out of the shell into the bucket. Smart little sucker!
 
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