how to get a fish out of an overflow?

[ganowicki]

my 6 line wrasse has jumped into my overflow. how do ya get em out, without tearing all the plumbing out.

[Jason McK]

A net or two and a lot of patients. Or ripe the whole thing apart

J

[Doug]

This is how I did it.

Pull the stack out slowly releasing the water, so as not to suck the fish through, but one of the young bangaii go anyways. Good thing the bucket was under the drain pipe.

The pull all the rock out, thats in there because its a refugium also. Next try getting your arm in the 7in. sq. 30, {&^$$*&(*((P*&,} inches deep overflow, with a net and still see what your doing.

Then be surprised that the single remaining juvy bangaii your trying to catch, has three more babies for company.

Then chase them around with a brine shrimp net, on the bottom, that you cant see, scratching the crap out of your arm on the growth on the overflow walls.

After about half an hour, kick some stuff around in the fishroom, go for a walk and start over.

[christyf5]

Or wait till he jumps back into the tank.

[ganowicki]

Got em!

I unscrewed the standpipe (thank god I used threaded ends) and sucked him into my sump. took a net and nabbed him. now he is back in the tank.

[Son Of Skyline]

I always just wait for the fish to make its way into the sump.

[Scavenger]

Glad you got him back!! Now put a little "off limits" sign on your overflow so he won't do it again.

[Andy]

My six-line jumped into my overflow. I left him there then one day noticed he was back in the tank. Guess he got lonely in there. He was in the overflow for a good month or two.

[sumpfinfishe]

I was having this same problem with hermits and snails, not to mention the odd fish taking a leap once in a while

So last weekend I finally did something about it
I went to Home depot and picked up a sheet of egg crate and some fiberglass window screen. I simply cut the egg crate to fit my overflow, then wrapped it in the window screening and used some frag glue to hold it to the egg crate. I then placed three suction cups just under the overflow slits, so the the new screen sits just below the water fall and is held up by the suction cups. If anything now ventures to the "dark side" it can simply flip, crawl, jump, or wait for a helping hand to retun back to the tank. I also have a large grade of pond filter in front of the bulkhead, that way in the past or present, no fish, critters, or now suction cups will be able to clog up the bulkhead hole or pass into the sump.

I will try to take a picture of it tomorrow to give an idea what it looks like.
It works great already, as I saw a snail crawling on the screen earlier and then it made it's way back into the tank. The screen has also not impeeded the flow either. It took me six years to finally make this minor adjustment to the tank, like I partioned my sump last year too. Sometimes the little improvements that we do to our tanks can make a big difference