Seaside Aquatics Fish Trap, Large

trap works well<br>attachment brackets are very fragile. one broke with me.<br>you have to support the weight of the trap with something as the weight makes it want to droop down. not a good situation in a coral tank if it releases

I needed to get a hog fish out of my reef tank. I bought this trap to try and accomplish that. It is very well-built. My main complaints have to do with the closing mechanism. There is an acrylic bar which you pull out and the trap door closes. There are 2 ways to set it up. One is with the door nearly completely open and the other is with the door nearly completely shut. I wish they would've put multiple other choices so that you could set it up with the door half open or one quarter of the way open depending on the size fish you wanted to catch. With the door all the way open I had a very large tang that goes in and eats all of the food and then leaves. Also, the door is not under any sort of tension to close. It just closes with gravity. This gives any fast moving fish ample time to leave the trap. I placed a spacer underneath the bar that you pull out and was able to set it up so that the door was approximately one quarter of the way open. This allowed for the hog fish 2 to enter the trap and not all of the other tangs. I was able to capture him. I think if you put some rubber bands on either side of the door to give it more speed with closure it would work better. Also, the mechanism to pull the bar out is somewhat sensitive and when I had the door only partially opened, the tangs hit the door enough trying to get the food that it would close. I just think a better closure mechanism on the door would be very easy to design and would significantly improve the function of the trap. Maybe if you bought the smaller version it would work better for the type of fish I was trying to catch which is approximately 5 inches long. I didn't want to end up buying 3 of these traps (small medium and large as they are not inexpensive. I thought that by buying the biggest trap it could cover any of my capturing needs. I think with some modification it will work well but I think if you're paying $60 for a trap you shouldn't have to modify it.

Needed to catch a stubborn tang out of my reef tank. Being a full blown reef tank pulling the rock out is not an option. So I figured I'd give this a try. Within 12 hours the tang was out and relocated to his new home. The acrylic construction is top notch and the suction cups are very strong. One of the best 60 bucks ever spent.