Re: catching fast fish

["S. Hieber" <shieber at yahoo_com>]

Joe Reiter - Bigfoot found a trap to catch his chinese algae eaters
but:

> I went to my LFS today and it turns out one of
> the
> employees has a fish trap, which he loaned me along with a bag of
> algae
> tablets.  However, this trap is manually operated!  (doh!)  It's
> simply got
> a gravity operated sliding door, which you basically just hold up
> with a
> long piece of fishing line which runs out of the tank.  So I need to
> put it
> in the tank while the suckers are active (with an algae table in the
> back)
> and just wait with my hand on the wire.  Oh boy!  :)

One solution is to make an automatic trap for the cost of a pint size
empty drinking water bottle and a couple of broken toothpick pieces. 
Search the archives for lots of tips along these lines.

Briefly, cut off the bottle top where the bottle sides become straight
and invert this "funnel" shape into the bottle.  Then make some holes
through the bottle pieces so you can hold the two piece together with
some bits of toothpick.  Put some more holes in the bottle body for
"circulation."  A small heated screwdrive or icepick works well for
making the holes -- *don't* try to jam a knife through the bottle,
which makes for a messy hole in the bottle a nasty slice in you.  

Now you have trap that you can take apart and reassemble.  Put the bait
inside and  put the trap in the tank.  Generally, fish will swim into
the trap but not back out or swim of the funnel shape.  Leave it
overnight.  If you catch the wrong fish, let it go and try again.  Oh
yes, this costs you patience, but if you're an aquatic gardener, you
have plenty that ;-)   .

Good luck,
Scott H.

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