Orchid dottyback removal help!

[Stort]

I made the stupid mistake of not taking people’s advice when it came to adding an orchid dottyback to my tank and now I’m paying the price. About a week ago I added it and it almost immediately claimed the entire rock work in my tank as it’s home and wouldn’t let my little angel pink streaked wrasse near it. It wasn’t overt aggression, more just territoriallity. I decided it wasn’t worth stressing out my favorite fish and decided to remove the dottyback. Sounds easy right? First tried with a small net but that obviously didn’t last long before I realized it was futile. So I went with the water bottle fish trap method as suggested by many others with the same issue. Last night I spent at least 3 hours closely monitoring it and periodically adding frozen brine and mysis to the bottle via a small hole in the top. I even agitated the food to attract the dottyback which definitely caught its attention. Unfortunately I didn’t have any luck the first night and tried again a little bit ago. And it worked! I quickly put the fish in a net box I had ready and thought the battle was over.

THEN I heard splashing coming from the tank and saw this little escape artists sticking its head through a TINY hole in the top of the box.

It took all of 2 seconds til it was back in the display and disappeared back into the live rock.

Any advice would be much appreciated. I have my doubts that it will fall for the trap again but that’s about the only idea short of buying a specialized fish trap or draining the water and pulling the rocks apart.

 

[cryingrn]

Ime, dottybacks seem to really have a thing against wrasse. Ive seen it multiple times- I do not believe they appreciate fish with a similar body plan in their territory.

You can try a fish trap. There are diy options available and commercial. Ive actually had luck using a long piece of PVC pipe, encouraging the fish to flush into it for shelter, and then picking up the pipe by both ends and dumping it in a net. Otherwise, taking out the liverock and giving the tank a nice reset is in order.

 

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You can try feeding exclusively in the net for a few days, but this can take a while to work. Otherwise fish trap would be the next best thing aside from draining the tank, or doing a redo of the scape. I wish you luck!

 

[DmitryB]

Try the bottle again, you never know! Maybe in a different spot? Change something about it to make it something new.

 

[Rob A]

Get a large shell like a conch it will go right into it and just pick up the shell or put a net over it.