Fish Collection Techniques

[D12monkey]

Hey All,

Here's another tread in attempt to get everyone to participate. I've been collecting tropicals for a while now. I've had success with the techniques I've created/learned by myself... I was wondering if anyone out there also collects their own tropicals and which techniques that are employed. Also would be interesting to learn the success of these techniques.

So I decided to start out here by talking about the different techniques that if used.

First off I started with my own oversized net that we can buy to catch our own aquarium fishes. I have the 10 in version of this net and I've used it with limited success. It would fairly well with slower fishes like the High-hats and Jack knife fishes. But doesn't work very well with faster fishes. It also works with shrimps and crustations. My recommendation in using these net would be for crustations, due to the fact that these nets are fairly economical and can be bent into various sizes fairly easily.

I have also used the slurp guns. These are of no use and stray away from purchasing these items as they are expensive and are quite ineffective.

The monofliament collection nets are extremely successful in catching those faster fish but the drawback to this is that the netting can easily get caught in the gillplates of the fish and cause injuries to the specimen collected.

The use of the tropical collection nets with the clear heavy duty plastic sides are slo fairly effective yet do not harm the fish that you collect. This is one of the tools that has provided me with great success in the collecting process. Although they are fairly expensive they are not much more than the monofilament collection nets.

I've also created my own versions of collections tools. The most effetive being the use of mosquito screening with Weights attache are one end and floats on the other. Creating in essence a seine net. This net is very effective but has to be used by 2 people at least. One on each end of the net.

Since creating my own seine net. I've since modified the net to have an "escape" section for the fish. It's acutally a long cylindrical tube of clear heavy duty pvc plastic sheet with a clear collection cup at the end. This has increase my success exponentially. The fish think they are "escaping" straight into my collection cups.

I only have a few opportunities to use this net because I have few people that wish to collect fishes down here. So I end up using the Tropical collection nets.

Which ways do you all collect your fishes? What have you found that works well? I'd like to hear your techniques.