Collecting Your Own Tropical Aquarium Fish

To begin making your net, start by dying and stretching your net material. The dye combination makes the net almost invisible to fish. We have had to laugh many times when using a freshly dyed net. Fish will bump into the net and are totally surprised to find that they can not swim any further. With time and use, the net becomes more opaque. You will need two people to dye and stretch the net material, which you want to do before constructing the collection net. The net will cool very rapidly, so plan ahead. You will also want to wear gloves to protect your hands from the dye and the hot water, as well as wear old unwanted clothes, because they WILL get dye on them. Here is what to do:

• Put boiling water in a 5 gallon bucket.
• Add the two packets of dye.
• Stir until the dye is completely dissolved.
• Immerse the net in the water for 30 seconds then take it out.
• With one person at each end of the net, walk in opposite directions stretching it out as far as you can. Hold it stretched out for about 30 seconds. This will put the "set" in the net and make it easier to handle later on during construction.

Your 1/4" polypropylene rope will probably come to you wound on a spindle and it will have a tendency to curl. You can heat it in hot water and stretch it as you did with the the net. This will allow the net to follow a straight line when you sew on the lead and float lines. The length of the lead (bottom) line and float (top) line will be determined on how long your net is going to be, then add a couple of feet for error factors. Melt the end of the rope with a lighter to seal the end and prevent unraveled of the rope. Once the net material is dyed and stretched and your rope is ready you can begin hanging net.
View our Fish Collecting Net Diagram and follow the instructions below to make it.

• Load the net needle with the nylon twine. To do this, tie the end of the twine to the "tang" in the center of the needle. Then run the twine down the needle, then up the back side and around the tang, again. Repeat the looping until you have about 20 feet of twine on the needle and cut off the the twine.

• Slide your weights onto the lead line rope. You will want to place one lead every six inches center to center on the bottom of your net. For the float line you want one float every 24 inches center to center for the top of the net. This will keep the net on the bottom for the set net method and allow a good sink rate if you opt for the drop net method for capture. Tie a knot in one end of your rope and string your leads and floats from the "bitter end" of the rope. For a 20' net string 41 leads onto the lead line and 11 floats onto the float line.

• Start sewing the lead line by tying a triple half hitch knot four inches from the end of the rope. Then hold the end of the net to the rope, run the net needle through the first net eye and tie a double half hitch. Slide a weight into position down the rope to the knot. Thread the net needle through three of the net "eyes", then tie a double half hitch, through the net eye, around the rope and net after stretching the net, to where the net eyes are symmetrical (3/4" x 3/4"). Repeat this process spacing the weights and pulling the net over them until the net is complete. When you get to the end of the net, tie another double double half hitch to finish the end of the net.

• Follow the same procedure and attach the float line to the top of the net spacing the floats accordingly as mentioned above.

You now have a nice, new collection net. Use your net needle and load some of the 15 pound test monofilament fishing line for use in patching holes in your net after use. Fish can find a hole in your net and go through it very easily. After working with fish for nine years our theory is that it has to do with what they see. When the fish are looking at a perfect net (no unwanted holes), they see a perfectly symmetrical pattern. When there is a hole in this pattern they can spot it as being different and will try and access it to see if they can get through. Amazing, isn't it!

You're getting closer!! Having learned how to make your catch buckets and collection nets, the only thing left to make now is one of the least time consuming, hand nets. Then, after you read about how to capture, decompress and transport fish, you'll be ready to start collecting.

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