I lost everything !!

[Majestic_Aquariums]

We were devistated to hear of your troubles Jim. What a shame...
Not sure what else to say on the subject.
You guys did so much careful planning on the system, time and money too. This was supposed to be a happy ending, not disaster.

Hope it gets better though.

[EmilyB]

Jim, condolences buddy.

Come on by when things have stabilized. I can round up a few sticks for you.

[Dez]

Sorry Jim,

My move 2 weeks ago cost me $300 worth of corals that I bought off Jonathan when he shut down. And I only moved five minutes away from my old house. Sucks doesn't it....I felt like quitting..

Des

[bulletsworld]

Yeah after hearing yours Dez, Jim's & everyone else's tank move stories, with coral/tank losses & crashes, I'm now scared about the move outta my place next month with my big tank. Eeekkkk!

thanks for sharing all your story though. Good to know.

[Beverly]

Geez, guys, I've moved several tanks times, either from one tank to another, or from house to house and never lost anything that I can think of right now. Of course, I didn't/don't have a lot of stony corals, mostly lps and softies with some sps.

The key from moving from house to house is to move the tank on a separate day from furniture/household goods moving. That way lots of time can be taken for moving the tank contents. Have lots of pails for LR and sandbed if you have one, and rubbermaid tubs for moving corals and fish. Also, clean as much algae off the tank walls the day before so when it dries out during the move it's not going to cause a spike of any kind. At your new place, have lots of NSW made up prior to the move to top up for whatever water was lost during the move.

Tank moving day is a good do to clean your LR. Have a bucket a third full of tankwater. Each rock coming out of the tank gets a good swish in the bucket. TONS of crud will come out of your rock and your bucket will get filthy Dump the dirty water from time to time, refill with tankwater and keep swishing.

It's been so long since I moved a sandbed, that I forgot exactly how I did it. Once all the corals, fish, inverts, LR are out, there will be some water left in the tank covering the sandbed. I think this is when I stirred up the entire sandbed (at least 3" deep) to off-gas the stinky bad stuff from the lower layers of the sandbed. Here, too, the water would get absolutely filthy I'd scrape the sandbed to one side of the tank, siphon out the dirty water, add it the sand to pails, then move everything to the new place. Have lots of muscle carrying the tank, stand, lighting, other equipment, pails and tubs

[Dez]

Bev, I think most of us lost only sps corals. In my tank move I only lost 3-4 big colonies of sps, all of my lps and other stonies made it, and my 3 clams are still alive and kicking. I had no softies. I think that sps corals are just a bit touchier. I didn't lose a single fish.

I don't think that a lot of people have the option to have a separate day for just moving the tanks either. I did not have that option when I moved, but felt that I was responsible for the tank move. I had people dedicated to only the fish tank on the day of the move. Newguy, Richer, Blk Wolfe all helped with Newguy in charge. Some may just be too sensitive to changes that quickly.

Des

[bailey7424]

I've had a challenging experience somewhat like you - sorry to hear about the loss. I'm sure it's not just about the time and money, but also about the dark feeling you get in your stomach when you've been responsible for a large group of animals and then they die under your care.

I had a 33 gallon set-up until 30 days ago when I went to a 90 gallon set-up. I had a faulty heater in a large tub of live rock - there was die off from the live rock which I put into the new set-up and that started a whole chain of events in which I've lost two fish, a shrimp and six or seven corals. So, not as unfortunate a loss as yours. Tank is almost done cycling.

I am still thinking about what options I could have looked at to avoid some of the problems. I will post my whole story so other can learn from it.