Catching plecos in heavily planted tank

[Fishtex]

Anyone have tips/suggestions on catching several plecos from a heavily planted 90 gallon tank without destroying everything in the process/. Thanks

[Colu]

I use a hobby genius fish trap 

[Scot]

I was going to say, put in a few pleco caves of the right size. When the pleco is in one, cover the open end before picking it up.

[nabokovfan87]

On 7/28/2022 at 4:25 PM, Fishtex said:

Anyone have tips/suggestions on catching several plecos from a heavily planted 90 gallon tank without destroying everything in the process/. Thanks

Only a 75, but it worked fine whenever I was having a heck of a time getting a crazy difficult fish.

drain the tank to 50%, find the pleco you want, and use the Cory method:

Previously someone had mentioned using a specimen container underwater instead of a net so they don't get trapped in the mesh.  That's a great tip as well.  I would recommend not doing that if the fish is darting all over the place.  Plecos in general are very timid when it comes to light and having pleco caves and moving the caves themselves is a great way to handle it.  If you don't have a cave, you might have one literally just for this method, but I imagine the fish will get smart.

The most difficult fish I would have to catch is the borneo loaches (similar to a hillstream loach) and they will straight up climb up the wall without water to keep from you being able to get them.  Cory's tip of waiting for the fish to move into the net is a big one.  As long as the fish can't get away, eventually they will get there.  That's the summary and the main way I think you transfer corys, otos, or plecos when you're trying to use a net with mesh where they can get trapped.  The easier the time they have getting into the net, the easier the time they have getting out of the net safely.

[TheSwissAquarist]

@Cory has done a fish catching tutorial on YouTube, but he demonstrated it with zebra danios in an empty store aquarium.

[Brandon p]

I use the the breeding caves, but this would be a good idea where there is not easily removable caves. @Colu does the clear plastic keep them from going in. I have a clear tube so I can see the clown loaches but the plecos never seem to enter into it.