Moving a Tank

[trwells]

I am about to move my aquarium across town and I have a few questions. I have a number of buckets and will have plenty of extra mixed water on hand but I am a little unsure about what to do with the substrate. The tank is a 24 gallon nano cube and has about a 4 inch sand bed that is about 1.5 years old. I know a lot of times people will remove the live rock and leave enough water in the tank to cover the substrate but I am worried about stirring it up as some of my live rock is pushed down into the sandbed. Another option would be to remove the sandbed completely and either replace or just leave it bare. The tank is going to be setup at the new location just as a holding tank until my new 58 gallon is ready. But it could be a few months. Any opinions on what would be better or easier?

Thanks.

[marduc]

move the tank empty. any additional weight be it water, or sand will put strain on the seals.

[Shnabbles]

You may want to loose the subtrate alltogether and start fresh with new sand/crushed coral... stirring up your old sand will be a nitrate EXPLOSION!

[rbursek]

Moved my 120 last month, Syphon the sand clean and rinsed it a resyphoned a couple times, nitrates where fine. Have some water made up at the new place. Everything went fine, lost nothing.
Bob

[trwells]

alright, thanks guys. Will probably replace the sand.

[mfp4073]

I moved a tank recently and had NO problems show up from reusing the sand.

[frederickk]

If the tank is empty there shouldn't be any problems. I did the same but with my 77g two years ago and it went fine

[saltym3]

i moved my 29 gallon twice by removing everything except the sand. I setup my tank the same day as the move and did not have any nitrate problems. I did do a 40% water change shortly after however.