How to stop carpet surfers?

[HumanIMDB]

Pretty much every fish we've had has ended up jumping out of the tank.

To prevent this I cut a piece of eggcrate and put it over the top, I even cut around the HOB Fuge, hoses, etc. but we've had several fish after that who've ended up on the carpet.

They are almost always behind the aquarium which leads me to believe they are getting out up through the back, probably where the HOB fuge is.

Any ideas? Even if we get a glass top, there is still going to be cut outs for the fuge and stuff.

The only other thing I can think of is that the cleaner shrimp is quite aggressive sometimes, could it be chasing them out of the tank. The only other inhabitants are snails and hermit crabs and a one legged, one clawed emerald crab.

We have lots of hiding spaces, in fact we saw the latest jumper a Watchman Goby (sample photo, not our specimen) in several of the hiding spaces since we got him.

The Rainford Goby (sample photo, not our specimen) that we got at the same time is still in his hiding spot, hopefully we won't find him dried up on the floor...

[fish4lyfe]

its funny that you call them carpet surfers because that term refers to coke addicts who surf through the carpet looking for any grain of coke. anyways that was way off-topic.

what you could do is construct some sort flexable fish net to hover over the tank so that when a fish jumps out it will be forced back in..

[ahullsb]

You have a few options. If your overflow is a hob box that hangs on back, go to a plastics store and have them cut a lid to place over the top. If your tank is drilled, some wire mesh over the opening could prevent them from getting through as well. If the fish are small enough to jump through the egg crate, go to a hardware store, or fish and tackle store, and buy some sort of netting to place over the top of the tank. You can find it smaller than the openings in the eggcrate, but large enough to allow all the light to still pass through.