I thought that we would work with some acrylic at the workshop for the April meeting at Worlds Under Water in Fayetteville. I did some research and didn't come up with much that I was happy with. The easiest trap is to just cut a two liter bottle and invert it inside itself. I have not tested this trap but there were enough plans for it on the internet to make me believe that it must be somewhat effective. The commercial traps that I found were made of cylinders which is pretty much out when doing diy because it is difficult to come by and expensive. The acrylic for this workshop was donated by ACI plastics from there scrap bin - Brett, in the main office, is always very accomadating of our needs especially since they increased there minimum purchase to 100$. The plan that I came up with has closing doors on both ends. The doors are mitered into a side groove in the side peices. This allows enough water to be retained in the box with the doors closed to move the trapped fish without loosing all the water immediatly. It is by no means close to being water proof but holds it long enough. The doors have holes in the tops so that fishing line can be tied to the door with a bobber at the other end. This allows you to easily adjust the bobber height with the water level to hold the door open to the trap so you will not have to stand there continually watching the trap. The inside of the trap leads the fish through a center funnel towards bait that you have placed in the trap. The inlet for the fish is in the center because fish tend to travel down the sides of things when looking to escape, alot like a new fish will travel up and down your tanks glass. If there was a single slanted entrance that ended with the opening at one of the sides the likelyhood of a fish escaping after entering the trap would be alot greater. The traps that we made are realetively tall compared to commercial ones for tangs and small fish. The only element that I did not add to this particular design is a way to add food to the trap without having to remove it, which I saw on a number of commercial traps. If you have any suggestions on improving the design please don't hesitate to speak up. We also did a little glazing with a torch to demonstrate that it is possible to do with a regular torch but there is an art in not heating the acrylic to much as it will burn. We also learned that the working time of Weldon 3 is greatly affected by humidity. I have always worked with it outside on sunny days and on this particular day we were inside the fish store with was well insullated and no doors open meaning elevated humidity. The hold time was greatly increased from normal, which is almost instant. Participants were able to see how the Weldon 3 wicks into the joints of the box, it just took longer than we had for the joints to setup. I let the Cornellisuses take the demo that I had made earlier in the week since they lived in Ft. Smith and took the others home to finish for members that live close to me. This was a nice workshop and easy to do - given a better drying time on the acrylic. It was not quite up to par with Normans DIY Phytoplanton Culture Stations so hopefully I have completed the learning curve so it will be perfect next time.
Cool idea chris! I recently did a DIY fish trap since I have a problem with a small fish that keeps on gitting stuck in the overflow box. its a cramped space with two durso stand pipes, thus a small fish trap was in need. I came up with a one inch pvc pipe and a removable one inch cap. Also I drilled a hole and attached some monofillament fishing string. All I had to do was chase the fish around with a tickel stick untilll it hid in the fish trap. I had to get that same fish out of the same overflow box twice.
