How to catch a Damsil?

I have a blue fin damsil nearing maturity and it's beating up my
dragonnet badly and my coral beauty showed up with wounds as well
(although I'm not sure what happened to it).

I pulled out the dragonnet, but the damsil is hard to catch. I tried
floating some food with the net ready, but damsil is quicker then the hand.

I see that there are fish traps. Do they work? Any other ideas?

--Kurt

I had a chalk BAsslet one time that was giving me fits, and I made a
trap. It was sucessfull in removing the basslet. The trap I made had a
pivoting door, not the typical funnel type trap. It was merely a box
of clear acrylic 2" wide x 6" high by 8" long. one one end it had
adoor that hinged on a piece of clea round acrylic. Placed food inside
at back of trap, hung trap off aquarium rim, with pivot rod extending
up out of the top of the tan, fish see and smell food, if worng fish
went to go in the trap I merely closed the door, when right fish
entered I justy turned rod and swung door closed. Pieceof cake.

Short of a spear gun or dynamite Damsels are tough fish to catch ;-)
In a web based forum, it seems to be a pretty common agreed on method
to use a tiny hook and actually go fishing in the tank. I do not know
if I would go to that extreme, but I just refuse to rip my live rock
apart to catch a fish. And with what IU have read thehook method is
very quick and effective and does not really harm the fish as long sa
the fish does not swallow the hook. Hook also needs to be made in to a
barbless hook to facilitate removal.

On Sun, 17 Dec 2006 13:56:49 -0500, KurtG
wrote:


I have a blue fin damsil nearing maturity and it's beating up my
dragonnet badly and my coral beauty showed up with wounds as well
(although I'm not sure what happened to it).

I pulled out the dragonnet, but the damsil is hard to catch. I tried
floating some food with the net ready, but damsil is quicker then the hand.

I see that there are fish traps. Do they work? Any other ideas?

--Kurt



-------
I forgot more about ponds and koi than I'll ever know!

Tristan wrote:
And with what IU have read thehook method is
very quick and effective and does not really harm the fish as long sa
the fish does not swallow the hook. Hook also needs to be made in to a
barbless hook to facilitate removal.

Funny. The damsel definitely needs to come out, so I'll consider that.

I was going to pick up a 2 litre bottle of soda and see if I can fashion
a trap. And, check the useless LFS.

--Kurt

PS- Apparently, useless LFS is down to one sal****er tank.

I had to get rid of my damsels - man that was fun. I literally took
every live rock out of the tank to get them. But it was a blessing in
disguise because I rearranged the rock, and made the tank look better
in the process. But I like the fish hook idea!

KurtG wrote:
I have a blue fin damsil nearing maturity and it's beating up my
dragonnet badly and my coral beauty showed up with wounds as well
(although I'm not sure what happened to it).

I pulled out the dragonnet, but the damsil is hard to catch. I tried
floating some food with the net ready, but damsil is quicker then the hand.

I see that there are fish traps. Do they work? Any other ideas?

--Kurt

Tristan wrote:
Short of a spear gun or dynamite Damsels are tough fish to catch ;-)


The 2 liter bottle trap caught my coral beauty and the offending damsel
in about 3 minutes. He's already in my quarantine tank.

I hope you weren't kidding about the fish hook. The smallest I could
find was #10 and it was just too big. Although, I almost nailed a Tang.
I pulled out the hook in the nick of time.

However, I gave up wondering if it was a joke. :-) A smaller hook
would have worked.

--Kurt

Take a 20 ox bottle of coke and cut the tappered mouth piece off of it. Take
the actual part where you drink from and stick it inside of the other side
of the bottle. (This is a makeshift trap). you can secure it with a drop of
crazy glue. Put the contraption aside for 2 or 3 days while you alow the
fish to go hungry. Put food inside the bottle and submerge it. The damsil
will go in for a tasty treat and will be unable to figure out how to
escape...
The trick is to make sure he is HUNGRY.
Good luck
"Joe" wrote in message
ups.com...
I had to get rid of my damsels - man that was fun. I literally took
every live rock out of the tank to get them. But it was a blessing in
disguise because I rearranged the rock, and made the tank look better
in the process. But I like the fish hook idea!

KurtG wrote:
I have a blue fin damsil nearing maturity and it's beating up my
dragonnet badly and my coral beauty showed up with wounds as well
(although I'm not sure what happened to it).

I pulled out the dragonnet, but the damsil is hard to catch. I tried
floating some food with the net ready, but damsil is quicker then the
hand.

I see that there are fish traps. Do they work? Any other ideas?

--Kurt

i learned the hard way that the best way to not have any problems with
Damsels, is to not have any Damsels in your tank.

i learned the hard way that the best way to not have any problems with
Damsels, is to not have any Damsels in your tank.

Yeah, but they make great starter fish, the problem is then you're stuck
with them..

I have never understood what a starter fish is. Is it a fish that is
cheap so therefore good to start with just incase yur not dead on with
things in the tank, or is it good because its hardy and takes more of
a beating so its generally used to cycling a tank as well which in my
opinion is not right since live rock is perfectly capable to initiate
a cycle.

I can honestly say I have only ever had one fish in the damsel family,
a blue devil, and it was bought by my son and was placed in the one
tank without my or the wifes permission. It was only a tiny little
thing of about 1" length and he put it in a fishless PICO sized 2 gal
tank. Looked cool but in short order it needed to come out and that
presented a challenge. ANyway, with as much bad publicity with damsels
I just do not see why folks continue to buy them. Its almost like they
decide to spring $3.50 for a damsel instead of paying $20 for another
and soon find uot that "other" fish are not gonna cut it with that
damsel in there. I feel bad for allthose damsels that were good enough
to endure cycling and bad habits and learning curves of new hobbyists,
but its certianly not the way to view those fish. They are however
very nice in their own tank if yu can handle just them and the few
others that they get along with.....


On Mon, 18 Dec 2006 11:17:35 -0600, "Peter Pan"
wrote:

i learned the hard way that the best way to not have any problems with
Damsels, is to not have any Damsels in your tank.

Yeah, but they make great starter fish, the problem is then you're stuck
with them..




-------
I forgot more about ponds and koi than I'll ever know!

Tristan wrote:
I can honestly say I have only ever had one fish in the damsel family,
a blue devil, and it was bought by my son and was placed in the one
tank without my or the wifes permission.

AFAIK, Damsils are considered "starter fish" because you can add them to
a new aquarium w/ live rock to provide ammonia load and get the system
cycled and running. They are cheap and hardy enough to survive this
environment.

Problem is that they are fairly docile when immature, but grow
increasingly aggressive as they age and can only be kept with other
aggressive species. This blue fin damsel will actually turn black over
time.

As for the offending damsil, I've been planning on a second tank with
more aggressive fish (no corals or anemone), so he'll be my first if he
survives long enough.

--Kurt