The most difficult fish to catch in a reef tank...

Mical · Sep 17, 2019

+1 foxface

Jeff Jarry reef · Sep 17, 2019

Royal Gramma

EW_Fish · Sep 17, 2019

Clowns are the easiest but every other fish is like "Not today"

MikeO5422 · Sep 17, 2019

Orchid dottyback... pretty sure he activity mocked me too.

AdamB · Sep 17, 2019

Daniel@R2R said:
What has been the most difficult fish you've ever had to catch? For me it was a sixline wrasse that was incessantly chasing and stressing out every other fish in the tank. He was almost IMPOSSIBLE to catch.
Neon dottyback and six line in a tie for me !
If I didn’t so much live rock then it might be a different outcome ?

Reefnman2 · Sep 17, 2019

I haven't had to net him yet but my Linespot Flasher Wrasse goes from 0 to gone in the blink of an eye would have to be impossible to catch him.

JRAD · Sep 17, 2019

Neon dottyback!

mort · Sep 17, 2019

When I was running a lfs it was firefish that I was least happiest about catching, not because they were that difficult (they just bolted into a pipe) but because we normally had 6-12 in at a time and you had to make sure none made a leap for it.

Worst fish to catch in the aquarium hobby for me is on the freshwater side and it's a toss up between khuli loaches, because they are wigley spaghetti, or horse face loaches, because they just hide under the sand and are super fast.

Jimbhoy13 · Sep 17, 2019

I bought three yellow tail damsels. One harassed another until it died. Then it started on the other. Took ages to catch it and took it back to the LFS. The one left is doing fine a year later.

mort · Sep 17, 2019

Oh and best way to catch sixlines or dottybacks is to get a 6" piece of pvc pipe, add end caps to both ends but make a hole or slit in one of them. Put it in your rockwork somewhere you can get to easily and add a couple of tasty mysis or krill. These types of fish love caves and will quickly learn there is food in there. You can either try and get them the first time or build up their confidence.

I used to train fish to feed in fish traps when I was doing servicing of tanks as it made the inevitable a lot easier.

azbigjohn · Sep 17, 2019

When I transferred my tank, it was my firefish.

I finally got it to go into a rock, and put the rock in a 5 gallon bucket. Still took me half an hour to catch it in the 5 gallon bucket; I don't know if it was dizzy, but I sure was just watching it!

Cyricdark · Sep 17, 2019

Raege said:
Blue devil Damsel

Yep I've had many that were hard to catch but none as bad as the Blue Devil damsel I had to wait till I upgraded to a bigger tank to get him out

Coralsdaily · Sep 17, 2019

When I was working in a LFS- a niger trigger. Little guy latched himself so tightly into the rockwork Had to remove the entire rock, first try prying, then soaking in bucket, eventually took a hammer and break down the rock into small chunks to get the guy.

S2G · Sep 17, 2019

Onyx clown. It doesnt even hide and has some moves. Will leave the water like a dolphin. I can usually trick the dottyback. Honestly any little fish in a bigger tank or the ones that will leave the water are royal pains.

Peterock78 · Sep 17, 2019

Strawberry pseudo. Took me close to 1 hr. Then decided to take the rock out and this MF wedged himself in one of the rocks and i didnt see which piece. Had to sort through 100lbs of wet rock with a flashlight.... UGH. anyone want a fish lol.

artieg1 · Sep 17, 2019

Wrasses for sure. Had a yellow coris and red coris 2 years ago as the only remaining fish in the tank when I went fallow 2 years ago. They hid under the sand, inside the unmoveable rockwork, every time. Finally took all 200 gallons out until there was an inch of water. They dove in the sand under the rock. I aimed my water mover at them and blasted them out and into the open where I nabbed them. All in, the process took 6 hours over a 2 week period.

foxt · Sep 17, 2019

+1 on wrasses. I have a melanurus wrasse that I have had to trap on numerous occasions, and it has gotten so wary of the trap that it is becoming more difficult with each time. I like the idea of the pvc pipe, I may try that next time.

themcnertney · Sep 17, 2019

Sohal Tang.

Was the most beautiful fish I've ever had but very aggressive and not nice. I however, didn't catch it. One day coming home from work, I had notice my tank was very calm. Not like it usually is. After looking around, I didn't see my sohal. I went around to the fish room looking on floor, thoughts it had jumped. Nothing. Turns out, I found it in my overflow. It had jumped in there. I spent a year trying to catch it. I had offered 100$ to my friends to try to catch it and couldn't. Guess you could say, I got lucky. I traded it to my lfs for a yellow tang and a blue hippo. The lfs still has it in its display tank and is doing very well. For some reason he is not a bully in there tank.