Moving your Tank... Good or Bad

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by Madreefer

Only thing I might add is to not try to move the tank or sump with anyting in it. You can break the seal. I did that to a 90g

Really? I moved my 75 full, minus the water. Fastest move ever

[Madreefer]

It was by myself and was just full of sand. I may have twisted it a bit. I had to lift it up from ground up 4'. Thought it was easier than pulling the wife away from Greys Anatomy. Now I have to reseal. Putting up with her rolling her eyes would have been the better choice

[sirruckus]

I recently bought a 55gallon full set up, and learned from that and improved when I bought another 90 gallon set up.

My best advice on my own experiences:

1.)Van would be best - if not truck - if truck, keep all temperature sensitive items inside the cabin

2.)get 5 gallon buckets, go to home depot, have 6 of them on hand

OR

if the situation allows you to have a submerssible pump with about 50' of vinyl tubing, you can get away with a couple buckets.

3.) have rubbermaid containers to store your water and live rock - the HUGE ones aren't good because they start to bow out - consider ones without any holes at the handle locations, and a lid

either pump water from your tank down into your holding containers in your vehicle or run 5 gallon buckets of water out there and fill it up that way.

4.) Keep first bucket(s) dedicated to live stock and corals ( I learned this the hard way, and feel like an idiot) on hand for the end.

5.) take live rock out and put into holding containers in the vehicle via 5 gallon pales with some water in them

6.) have corals in their own bags if possible and kept in a 5 gallon dedicated pale

7.) you could bag each fish - or put them in one dedicated container if compatible and not over stocked

8.) now you can take the hardware down

9.) o.k. to not take some of the water from original set up, consider it a water change.

10.) get home as fast as possible, put heaters and powerhead into buckets if safe that have live stock in them.

11.) now go through steps backwards, except introduce your fish and corals at the end.

From Central Calgary to Okotoks at night - took about 3-4 hours to take down, and set up. My goal was to keep the fish in the original tank as long as possible, and get them water movement and stable heat as fast as possible once home.


that or you can hire people to do it for you - heard of one guy doing it for $250 in calgary

total time to tear down, and set up a new tank

[Skimmerking]

all the times that i have moved a fish tank. the key is if you have sand to slowly take it out so you are not creating any Nitrates to hit the water. This is caused from the Anarobic bacteria that is trapped under the sand bed the eats Nitrates.

once u have the sand bed pretty much taken out. you can dry it out and take it over to the other place and leave it.

this will be like adding a sand bed that is brand new. but I would keep some in the tank then maybe like in a bowl for critters and whatever.

and the rest is taking your time and pre making water to have at the other house.

if you have tubs take the rock that does not have corals on them and you can move them in a pail with water.

This can act as a spare tank til u get the other tank over there.

good luck buds