Fish In Filter Compartment

[minatoar]

I have a River Reef Aquarium 94 litres which has compartments at the rear to house the filter pumps and media.
Small fish keep getting in these compartments and they are difficult to retrieve.
I assume they get through the fairly large slots at the top left filter compartment intake.
Can anyone suggest a DIY modification to prevent this, perhaps some sort of smaller grid.
Many thanks in anticipation.

 

[fish.com1]

I have a River Reef Aquarium 94 litres which has compartments at the rear to house the filter pumps and media.
Small fish keep getting in these compartments and they are difficult to retrieve.
I assume they get through the fairly large slots at the top left filter compartment intake.
Can anyone suggest a DIY modification to prevent this, perhaps some sort of smaller grid.
Many thanks in anticipation.

I had the exact same poroblem with my juwel tank. I just covered the hole with a chopped up bit of plastic, but your problem sounds different. If it is the slits in which the water is drawn through then i suppose you could get some very fine netting and coverr the slits with that.

 

[aaronus]

I have an idea. I recently purchased a divider for my 10 gallon tank, like the one at this site: Lee's Tank Divider 10 Gallon It allows water to get back and forth but fish can't. Perhaps you could find a way to fit that over the slots by cutting, tying, and the like.
fish.com1's idea of fine netting sounds great, except I wonder whether the netting would deteriorate quickly being submersed in water constantly.

Have you considered merely asking the fish to stay out of there?

 

[squeakytoy]

I went and got some pet safe screen door mesh. It seems to be a plastic base, and its a bit sturdier than the basic mesh. I went a bit different route in that I often feed flake food, and hate having to turn the filter off or just wattch the flake get sucked into the bio balls. I used some corrugated plastic, and using a piece about 3" x 10" wide, I cut the bottom long side at a 45 deg. angle. I then cut the back "panel" away from the currugations, leaving a bunch of exposed vanes. Then, I hollowed out the vanes in the back so that there was still a run of about 1/2" at the top and bottom. (try to leave the back on these portions as it will make later steps easier.) This left a central open area on the back portion of the plastic, which I positioned to cover over the overflow with the least amount of resistance. Then take a strip of the screening and glue it in place using super glue. I used Gorilla Glue's version as it has a rubber component added that gives a bit more flexibility. If you want to get really fancy, get a few rare earth magnets and glue them into the corrugations to hold the assembly in place. I had an acrylic tank, so I just glued it to the back wall and made it semi permanent. If I had easier access or if the area had more visibility, I would have gone the magnet route. Hope this helped...