here's a fun one: what fish do you rate hardest to catch (and how did you?)

[cardiffgiant]

Camel shrimp. I had 2. Caught the first one in 2 seconds. The second is still in there. He is faster than light, won't fall for any trap, and taunts me. Taunts me, I say.

I need an afternoon, and a few buckets. I feel a tear down coming on.

[reefkeeper135]

Velvet damsel from H**L!!!!!! used the old shrimp on a hook, took me and my son about an hour but got him in the end!!

[Sk8r]

Somebody on line told me one---I think for a wrasse. They removed the jump guards and deliberately spooked it into jumping.
A carpet-surfing is a hard way to recover a fish, but there are worse ways. Lol!

[pledosophy]

Pink spotted watchman.

Removed all the rock. Then had to start on the sand. Anytime I would get close he'd kick up so much sand you couldn't see through the tank. I ended up draining all the water too. Took about 3 hours. In a 20g.

Easiest ever, seahorse, they swim into the cup and you just pull the cup out.

[nikygm]

My Tomato Clown, he would attack my hand when i put in the tank and also he would harass my other fish had to remove all my rock and half the water, he went back to the store where i got him. I contemplated flushing him but he wasn't dead and just couldn't do that to him.

[davocean]

This guy(sohal) lightning fast.


Had to make this to catch him(pretty high tech) but works!

[reefing102]

niger trigger - he gets in a small space in a rock expands his fins and he's in for hours

[tkeracer619]

Clown Gobie in my 360.... still havent got him out.

[LukFox]

Red Sea sailfin tang. Took hours to get out over several days of trying, and it was a real pain. She was even hard to see, being such a dark color and hiding deep in the rocks.

[jlyles]

I had two large blue fin damsels I wanted to remove from my 90 gal tank. Did not have a chance with all the rock so I took out a few at a time to give me more room and kept trying. I had removed all rock but the largest one, when I took it out I could not see the two fish in the tank. I then went through the rock in the rubbermaid container and found them in a cave in a large rock I had. Never did touch the fish with the net but I did get them out. I will never put a Damsel in a tank over 10 gal. again!

[yellowwatchmen]

Yellow coris wrasse. I had to take all my water and sand out to catch him. Good thing I was moving my tank in the first place.

[good advice]

Damsels.... yellow tailed... tried all the tricks, ended up pulling all the rocks out... never again

[flyyyguy]

I recall a sailfin tang that was a LPS murdering machine........

I had just reaquscaped my tank and wasnt about to redo it for this stupid open brain eating fish.....

trapped him in his sleeping spot with a couple pieces of acrylic and then took a 6 hp shop vac to him. THWUUUUMP!!



besides some scratches the fish was unharmed

[adtravels]

to expand this how about hardest to catch in open water and hardest to catch with rocks

open water: fire fish

rocks: golden dwarf angel

[SethSPST]

Purple Pseudo. Smartest and dumbest fish ever. Spent two hours with the help of my wife, no luck He would wedge himself into every nook and cranny in the rock. Then the idiot jumped into the overflow and got sucked thru the U-tube.
Second Place- not a fish, but black brittle stars. I had to place my rocks in a partially filled gladware container with the rock only slightly submerged, so they would crawl out.

[jeffbrig]

Fridmani pseudochromis, by far

We were catching our fish to quarantine them after a disease outbreak, and went from this:



to this:


All because the fridmani wouldn't go into a fish trap. To add insult to injury, he died a a result of all the stress.

Things bounce back, though, here's what we have today: