# catching a sick fish



## PuterChickFL (Feb 23, 2010)

i'm trying not to give up on this. I have a maroon clown that i'm trying to catch and put in my qt tank because he has these two large white patches on him. between tonite and last nite I've spend almost 3 hours trying to catch him. I've splashed so much water all over the floor and everywhere, and lost a fish that jumped out and didnt realize it thru all of this. I've moved rocks around and i've created just a huge mess to the point I dont even want a saltwater tank anymore :--( 

is there an easier way to do this? I dont want to put the coppersafe in the main tank and kill everything. I've invested too much time, effort and money into this tank


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## TU55LER (Jul 15, 2012)

Get a bigger net?:console:


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## PuterChickFL (Feb 23, 2010)

i was using three of them, one of which is a pretty good size.


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## funlad3 (Oct 9, 2010)

Wait for the lights to go out. THe fish will go into sleep mode, and should be an easy catch with a flashlight. If that doesn't work, drain the tank into clean buckets and Rubbermaids. It's a lot easier to catch a fish in 3" of water than it is in 18". 

Not that you want to hear this, but the entire tank is infected with whatever the maroon has.  Could you post a picture? It's possible that it has marine velvet, but it could just as easily have a fungus, curable with Salt Water Maracyn.


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## fishtankguy (Aug 3, 2012)

Maybe take all of the decorations out of the tank?


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## funlad3 (Oct 9, 2010)

The tank is filled with around 75 pounds of rock; removing it all is more work than it's worth.


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## PuterChickFL (Feb 23, 2010)

yea, removing all that rock is just too much, i would essentially be breaking the tank down, and I'm just not up for that. that would be the end of the tank, period. the other two fish look fine, my turbos are doing their think and my hermits are doing their thing (my smaller ones i'm losing because they are growing and I dont have any shells for them to move into)

i will say this, for a "sick" fish he has more life than all my other fish in my other tanks. when i think i have him cornered, he will quickly shoot away to the other side making me look like an idiot lol as far as sleep mode, he goes to the bottom in a corner under one of the bigger rocks, so its even more difficult catching him.

@funlad, will maracyn be harmful to anything else in the tank? right now I have coppersafe, and I think I have some melafix too. I can turn off the filter and still have ample water flow.

I have some "life" on one of my rocks that I'm trying to identify, so i'm setting up the cam on the tripod to try and capture some pics, hopefully I'll have something to post shortly.


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## Obsidian (May 20, 2007)

One of the things that a friend of mine does that really works: Get close to having him cornered- aim the net the way you want it- hit the glass right in front of him. It scares them into the net. Of course you don't want to hit the glass hard LOL.


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## PuterChickFL (Feb 23, 2010)

grrr the pics i got were very crappy. it got the "bad" side of him, just got good quality, he moves fast lol i started feeding and was starting to get good pics but then my battery died 

I may try that trick tho


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## funlad3 (Oct 9, 2010)

Yeah, you never want to treat your display tank with any medication. Again, maracyn will only cure the fish of fungal and bacterial infections. Ich requires copper or hyposalinity...


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## PuterChickFL (Feb 23, 2010)

well, i tricked him. decided to feed them for the night. he was pretty hungry and was coming to the top, so i was ready with the net, and snatched him when he came up for food lol

the white patch or whatever it was came off, so there's a small slightly white area where it "was", and i see a couple of spots on one of his fins. i'm treating him with coppersafe in the qt now.


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