Catching Yoyos...

[raedeon]

When I put together my last tank, I thought having a bit of conduit curved PVP pipe go under the substrate was going to be a good idea. Now I have upgraded to a larger tank and want to move my Yoyos into it. My 2 biggest live in the conduit pipe and if they come out at all, it is at night when I'm not looking. They will peak out every now and then, but I swear they see me clearly and hide back in the pipe. Does anyone have any idea on how I could get them out so I can put them in the new tank? I thought about just grabbing the conduit and lifting it up, but my Kuhliis live right above the curved part

[glenna]

what about getting some sort of small bore, but reasonably sized piece of netting material to push UNDER the whole area, maybe even a day beforre the move. Yes, you would also net up the kuhlis and disrupt their spot, but I bet it would be LESS disruptive to all considered. I always look for a solution that does not bother ANYONE more than necessary, but less "netting around", swooping and getting everyone riled up, uprooting plants and making a giant mess, sounds like a more attractive option. I have totally destroyed a tank and gotten everyone upset when I tried to 'force" a switch to another tank.
i have also read about "fish traps" but I was not convinced that this would be at all viable, since I usually have more than one species in a given tank. Yoyo's are formidible. I will be interested in how you work it out.

[raedeon]

Thanks for the advice Glenna. I actually managed to catch 1 of the big ones when it hid in a piece of pipe above ground. Then I discovered I had counted wrong, as there is 1 large 1 not-so-large still left over. I just got back from 'house'(dog) sitting and I'm going to try and scare them out of the conduit pipe as soon as my heartburn goes away.

[raedeon]

Good thing I waited a couple days to move the last 2 over. My clowns in the new tank have Ich! I haven't seen the YoYos in there closely since I found the Ich on my biggest clown, but they are all in the same area together. I had to rush out to buy something for the Ich as soon as I found it yesterday.

[mattyd]

If you have ich, don't forget to increase the temperature to 28-29degrees C and put an airstone inside the tank (if you don't already have one in there). I'm in Brisbane, Australia (where we had the shocking floods 12 months ago), and in the last 3 weeks my 6ft tanks have all registered temps of 31deg because it has been so damn warm. Even at night time here, we haven't had temperatures drop below 25 C. But my clown loaches that are in one of the 6ft tanks haven't been bothered at all. I guess this sort of temperature would be normal for them in warm periods in their natural habitat. So warm up your tanks to help get rid of the ich.

With catching the yoyos, maybe use a bottle cleaner brush down the pvc to help encourage the fish to swim out in your waiting net. In my tanks I don't have anything like your undergravel pvc, but I do have plenty of driftwood logs. If I need to move or catch the fish, this is what I do: I move all my driftwood to one end of the tank, then lower the water to 6 inches deep. I use big nets and lift the logs up so that the fish slip out into the nets. Those fish get the least stressed because they get moved almost immediately. I then replace the logs and keep doing the same trick until the loaches realise my scheme. Then I remove the driftwood and use a specially sized frame with insect screen stretched across it. I use this screen to partition the tank and slide it along to the end where the fish are. I then only give my fish 4-5 inches of tank space and slowly move my nets towards them. The rest is easy. The fish can't swim around the nets and they get moved into their new tank in quick fashion.

Matt

[raedeon]

An update to this, I caught another Yoyo and moved him into the big tank the other day.
Scoreboard:
PVC Pipe 7
Fish Net -1

All my clowns died from the Ich, but the rest of my loaches in that tank relatively fine. I just got 2 UV sterilizers for my birthday, so hopefully that will help a bit. I bought another Yoyo from one of my LFS ($4 for a 6") while the ich treatment was going on, so i put it in the ich free tank. Now I can't get it out;) Just going to have to wait for it to 'hide' in the PVC pipe and scoop it out.