how have you gotten a fish out of an overflow?

[nickyblase]

I'm having a REALLY hard time getting my cute little blenny out of one of my overflows.

Problem is - he's small enough to hide between the overflow pipes and the acrylic wall section of the overflow (the black part with the teeth on it).

I have tried draining the water in the overflow down low enough that I could try to force him into the open, and that didn't work. Too hard to get my arm in there.

I am actually thinking about shutting off the pumps and trying to figure out if I can block the drains somehow and raise the water level high enough so that he can swim back over into the display tank.

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[ReeferMedic]

Laurie, is your drain pipe cemented in place? If not, you can pull the drain pipe out and will be able to fish it out of the sump. If it's small enough, it should just go for a quick ride without getting stuck. I've had to do this in the past with smaller wrasse that made their way into the overflow.

 

[wilfx]

Funny you should ask. Last night while harvesting my algae crop. I ws cleaning my overflow when I saw a reflection of my clown fish. (they live in the RBTA that hangs on my return outlet.) Anyway it was not a reflection. Somehow he had gotten into the overflow. I trie for about 20 minutes. Then I had a brain storm. Shut the pumps off and drain the overflow with a hose into a bucket. Good luck with whatever you decide.

 

[BrianMac]

I had a yellow tang take the overflow trip. Obviously he wouldn't fit down the drain. I ended up draining the overflow and using a net to collect the fish

 

[delta]

As stated before, I just drain down the overflow then it is easy to net them out. I always worried about the pulling the pipe and letting them head to the sump. I figure with my luck the fish would get stuck in the drain pipe ::

 

[Mcubed]

I've had a couple wrasses and a clown get stuck in the overflows. In the past I have just pulled up the drain pipe and they go for a swim down into my sump. One time a wrasse didn't make it all the way and i scrambled to pour some more water down the drain to flush him out. No visible injuries.

 

[twiddledog]

I just had an anthia get stuck in my overflow the other day. I couldnt fit a net so I drained the overflow and with my long tongs As gently as I could and grabbed her...and put her back in the water. Funny thing..the anthia was in there for a couple days..I thought she had died..when i returned the fish to the main tank a different anthia had taken his/her place as the doniniant Anthia..needless to say..there was some drama.

 

[JohnK]

Another way to do it is to pull the pipes out letting the water drain all the way down, then quickly plugging the bulkheads with paper towell wads, then quickly scooping up the now flopping around fish and tossing it back into the display. I've never tried this in those little AGA "megaflow" corner overflows so I don't know if there is enough room to get a hand far enough in there. Big fish nets won't fit in there, but the little 2x3" ones work great if you can fit your hand in.

The only concern with the "flush" method is that if there are feather dusters or other sharp things growing in the plumbing the fish could be hurt (thks for Marc {the rock guy} for pointing this out to me yrs ago.)