My wife's first strip

[OrangeCones]

The key to it is to allow it to stay in the tank a day or two if possible so they can adjust to the new "cave". Once they are comfortable with it, and the fish you wish to remove is near it, place the fish between the net and the pot. The fish will go to the pot every time, then it's easy to set the pot upright and remove both the pot and fish. My GSP's rarely swam up and out, usually they would sit near the bottom of the pot.

I keep dwarf freshwater puffers, and use your method (but a terracotta pot with the holes sealed up with silicone) to move them between tanks. I didn't worry about the moves stressing them as they are very tame due to being hand-fed live foods (snails and black worms), but more to prevent damage with the nets and to keep them in water just in case they did puff up. I've never had a freshwater puffer puff out of water, but did with a marine species (Canthigaster papua) once. I had 'adopted' the fish from a fishkeeper getting out of the hobby, and his beak was badly overgrown. While attempting to move him from the tank to a small QT for his beak trimming, he jumped out of the container. Before I could get him back into water, he puffed up. It took him 3 days to 'unpuff' the air he took in. I kept him in the QT (he coudn't swim properly, so didn't want to risk putting him back in the main tank) and trimmed him a week later.

 

[FishDad]

We lost a pictus using a net one time. Lessen learned hard.

OC, how do you go about trimming their beaks? Just curious.

 

[OrangeCones]

Just normal nail clippers!

 

[FishDad]

Hmm, that makes sense.

 

[OrangeCones]

I used clove oil to put them to sleep (careful, as an overdose will kill). 30 seconds out of the water, its done, and the fish is back in regular water. Normally ok to return to the main tank after an hour, once they recover from the clove oil effects.

 

[FishDad]

Yeah, either melifix or pimafix, I forget which one uses clove oil in it as part of the medication. Well I didn't know that. So after I dosed the whole tank they all just kind of stopped moving. It really freaked me out until I researched it and discovered why.