OK, how do you catch them then?

My babies have left the nest. They are EVERYWHERE. I counted 15 before I forgot which ones I'd already counted.....
And they're in the filter. I found one squashed up against a filter sponge when I was cleaning it earlier. Whether I assisted in the squashing I'm not sure, or perhaps he'd got stuck there and died - who knows. In another SAFER part of my filter I can see at least 5 babies, probably all flitting in and out the filter like its a buffet, quite happy in there.
How do I get them out? Will they start to be drawn to food at some point so I can just net them all on a piece of courgette?
The "cave" their Dad chose proved to be a great place but its part of a big piece of bogwood that I'm not about to pull out of the tank everytime he has eggs to put it in the grow out tank, so I'd like to know that it IS possible to catch them when they're free-swimming.
If anyone could offer me any advice, I'd be very grateful!

Drop some cucumber or courgette in and watch them go for it.

If you really want to catch them, then get a net ready and when you pick up the food scoop them up.

I get loads that site under my sponge filters and on the bog wood and I find that picking each one up slowly and putting a large net under helps me catch them

yep the cucumber and net works or you can syphon them up into a net over a bucket

Put the Zuchinni in a reasonably sized net , when you think there are enough fish sitting and having a feed just pull the net up, easiest way I've found.
J

Thanks all
They aren't showing a lot of interest in courgette yet - they're cleaning the tank which their parents don't do anymore lol
I'm just thinking when they've grown they're going to need to come out so the main tank isn't crowded