That’s one of the reasons why the best Paro-breeders have nearly empty tanks. If you want to have these fish decorate a nicely planted tank filled with wooden items and so on, you can nearly forget to catch them. At least with a net. A net is not the best means for catching Paros, not in nature and not in the aquarium (see below).
This is why I say: Paros are no fish for the normal decorative aquarium if you intend to catch them. You could build a fine jungle for them but then you must be sure what you put in. You won’t get it out again without disturbing and destroying everything. Often however some months later you could get mucz more fish out than you put in before. But together with the whole content.
When I visit one of our colleagues to get a fish from them (or vice versa someone comes to me for that purpose), we, keeping medium decorative tanks, have to take everything (remember Helene’s words!) out before we could begin catching, often even the gravel, if there is some at all. This is quite normal. The only difference is that I have not so many decorative requisits in the tank than those people who take the decorativity to be of first importance.
In nature, mostly nets are completely useless, too. Paros don’t swim freely in the water like barbs or rasboras. They hide in dense vegetation. The only method is to take big (!) firm plastic or metal sieves and sort the content out.
In a decorated tank you could be successful with a catching pipe made from glass (“glass fishing bell”). In former time this requisit was popular among all breeders and sellers of fish. It was offered in the pet shops everywhere. But today it has disappeared. The plastic nets have won. There is only one much too big type of “fishing bell” left made from cheap plastic for catching big cichlids, and even this is offered in one big shop in Germany only. But it is useless for Paros in small decorated tanks. Forget ist.
However, a German member of our network (Stephan Menzel) has found a small glass manufactory that is ready to produce it again in small sizes: looking like a pipe with an opening of about four centimeters only. (By the way: There is a short article by him on this issue in the “Betta News” edition that could be downloaded now here from our homepage, see pages 28/29).
This instrument looks much less “dangerous” to fish than nets. Indeed it is more difficult to be recognized at all. Of course, you have to prepare to use it. One certainly must learn to handle it, but then you could often be successful even in decorated tanks.