It's almost time to move the tank. IT'S MOVED!

[Anonymous]

I'll be moving my 75 next weekend. Here's my plan. Gather coolers and 5 gallon buckets to transport the rock, water, fish, the few remaining corals, and the one remaining clam. ( I had a friend with a new 125, I have already relocated most of my corals into his tank temporarily). I plan to put the fish in a couple of 5 gallon buckets. I am going to take everthing out of the tank except the sand. I'm only moving 10 miles so I don't think that the temperature in the rental truck will be a problem. The tank, stands, hood, sump, coolers, refugium will all go into the truck. I'll put the buckets in the back of my SUV with AC on. I'll set everything up in the new house and leave the livestock in the buckets overnight. I'll do a major WC after everthing is set up. I'll just received filter sleeves from Lifereef which finishes off my sump. I plan to run the filter sleeves with carbon, phosphate remover, and nitrate remover media (they came filled). I'll run this for 24 hours. I think the water should test ok by then. If so, i'll acclimate the livestock. Then I will slowly of the course of the next weeks start bringing my corals back from my friends tank.

I will move my RO unit prior to the tank move so that I can be prepared for the WC(s).

Am I missing anything here?

Louey

 

[ddavis4um]

I have done similar. I would add:

1) place live rock in with your fish overnight to maintain filtering.
2) place air stones in each bucket with any liive stock
3) place heaters in any bucket with fish.

I kept numerous fish just fine for 4-5 days in 5 gallon buckets with live rock, air and heat when moving from NJ to NC.

Good luck!

dpd

 

[Anonymous]

Sounds good. I just moved my 55 5 blocks, and had pretty damn good success. I got a bunch of 10 gal flat rubbermaid containers that worked great when filled half way.

Check your heater often in the new location, my crept up and I lost some sps because of it.

I also got a sheet of 3/4 plywood to put under the tank to move it. This distributed the weight and made the tank pretty easy to move.

Good Luck,

RR

 

[Anonymous]

I don't think the heaters are really necessary are they? I live in Florida and I will keep the temp of the house around 77-78. My tank usually runs around 82. I think the temp in the buckets would drop slowly and not cause harm. I don't even have a heater for my tank. I only use a heater to heat water for WC.

Opinions please! :wink:

Louey

 

[Anonymous]

with the relatively small volumes of water in those 5 gal.containers-your temp will probly swing fairly rapidly,and over a large range over the course of time involved-use a heater(try a rubbermaid 30 gal w/live rock and airstones and a heater for all your fishes, instead of individual buckets-larger mass of water=more stable temp, w/a heater.(an aquarium doesn't have to be made of glass :wink: )

good luck

 

[SPC]

Posted by Louey:

Gather coolers

I might have missed something here but if it were me I would keep the fish in the coolers rather than the 5 gallon buckets, temp would stay more stable.
Steve

 

[Anonymous]

Ok, how about I put the live stock in insulated cooler (or 2) w/ some LR and airstones?

 

[Anonymous]

Steve,

It looks like we posted at the same time. :lol:

 

[Anonymous]

i second vitz's comment about the 30g bucket.

i just moved last january and i used two 20g trashcans to move my rock and the majority of my water (46g tank). they were on the verge of being too heavy but my morning wheaties paid off.

 

[DK]

About 1 month ago, I moved a 90 G Bowfront, the price was right!!! I siphoned out the sand into large garbage pails with the water. Moving an emply tank yields the greatest liklihood of success IMHO. As the water level was reduced, I put the rock in 5G buckets and those that didn't fit, I but in another garbage pail. With everything out of the tank, moving was relatively easy ( except for the thunderstorm that decided to make its appearance at that time). With the rock, sand and most of the water out, catching the fish was a very quick exercise (and into 5G buckets).
Moved the tank, put some of the old water in and added 35G that I had prepared in advance at the new location (my office), added the rock, then the fish and corals and the sand was last.
Being on hold is much easier now!!!!

 

[Anonymous]

I am going to move the tank with the sand still in it. Does anyone think that the temp in the rental truck will cuase the temp of the sand to increase enough to cause massive die-off of the critters and bacteria in the sand? If I load the tank last, and unload it first, it'll be in the truck for 15-30 minutes.

 

[fishfarmer]

I bet your sandbed will be fine for that short period of time. How much sand is in the 75 gal? Remember WET sand is heavy. I'm guessing if you have 4" in there you might want four guys to handle each side to keep it level. Don't be macho and try to impress the women :wink: . I tried moving a 20 gal long sump with only 50 lbs of sand by myself, it was too damn heavy so I scooped out the top 1" and was able to move it then.

 

[rikacarl]

Louey, is your tank glass? If so, I'm guessing it is going to be too heavy to lift if you have DSB in there. I just moved my 65 glass tank and there was no way I was going to move it with out removing the sand.

The big item on my moving checklist is now a spare tank. You may want to look in the paper for a used one, or get a very large rubber maid container. I picked up a 100 gallon acrylic tank for free from some one was going to trash it. When moving, It makes things so much easier if you are not in a rush or panic to get the system back up and running. this way, I can let the dust settle from moving the sand before I move in the rock and corals.

If you don't get the spare tank, get more containers than you think you will need. I had WAY more than I thought I would use, and I used them all.

Here are some pics:

http://community.webshots.com/photo/436 ... 9757ABvNnl

-carl

 

[Paul A. Ifkovits]

My advise is to have a lot of extra premixed salt water ready at the new location. Twice as much as you think you will need. My delema was with the corals, rock and fish in 5 gallon buckets, I could not put the water in the tank to get it running. It was very hard to aquascape because of all the silt making the water very very cloudy.
_________________
apollo mist

 

[Anonymous]

Louey, is your tank glass? If so, I'm guessing it is going to be too heavy to lift if you have DSB in there.

Yes, my tank is glass. A friend of mine said he moved is glass 125 with the sand with just one person helping. My tank has about 2-1/2 to 3 inches of sand. We (me and my neighbor) are going to try to lift it with the sand. If we can do it, i'll have extra containers to put the sand in. I really not want to remove the sand as I am afraid of unleashing the beast that mouse always talks about.

My advise is to have a lot of extra premixed salt water ready at the new location. Twice as much as you think you will need.

I should have about 50 gallons of new SW on hand at the new house. that should be plenty. If not there is a store nearby that I can get all the RO water I want for 7 bucks, so I'll use that in case of an emergency.

I'm guessing if you have 4" in there you might want four guys to handle each side to keep it level.

Is it really inportant to keep the tank completely level? I have never really thought about this. Hmm...

 

[fishfarmer]

I have always been under the impression that you weren't supposed to lift tanks with water, sand, etc. because of sloshing or imbalance causing stress on the joints. Kinda like why we are supposed to level our tanks. Obviously glass tanks can take a lot of weight, I just wonder about slight twists or bumps during the move.

 

[ReefBum1]

maybe you have already assumed what i'm about to say, but make sure you siphon off and save as much of the current tank water as possible before it becomes cloudy. if you drain the cloudy water and re-use it when you set your tank back up there is a chance that RTN could occurr. i heard that this had happened to someone who used the cloudy water to re-establish a tank that was moved. i can't explain why this occurs...anyone have any ideas???

 

[Anonymous]

Well it's done. And I'm done too Stick a fork in me. I'm going to type a brief note about the move and crash out! I'm whooped! But there were no disasters and the tank is set up at the new house. The only casualty was my fire fish. I was afraid that they would make it because they make the home inside one of the base rocks. Could'n get them out. Dang and they have been with me sice the 2nd month of my tank. I wound up moving the tank and the stand complete on furniture dollies. This wasn't the plan, but the plan had to change when the bulkheads on the bottom of the tank wouldn't budge. Neither me or my buddy could budge them at all! :x I thought it was risky to try and move it that way, but it worked! . I put everything back together at the new house, put the rock back in and restarted the system. The fish and corals are still in coolers and appear to be fine. There are some crabs and snails in the tank, along with some brittestars, so if they are still alive in the moring I'll take that as a good sign that the water is ok. I used 30G of new water after the move.

Thanks for all the tips! :wink:

BTW, I left the base rock in the tank so as to not disturb the SB to bad. Then I laid wet towels over the base rock that was exposed to minimize die-off. I left the towels in the tank until after a added a good part of the water back in to minimize the cloudiness. It worked like a charm!

Now I am definately second guessing whether or not I really want a bigger tank. NOT!

One pooped Louey

 

[SPC]

Glad to hear it all went well Louey .
Steve

 

[Anonymous]

Congrats onthe successful move! When do we get to see pics of the new place?

Brett