HELP, Moving an Established Reef Tank

[Dobbs1101]

I was wondering what the best method to move a tank from one house to another? It's about 15-20 min away from his house. I will be helping out a friend move an established 30 gal reef tank he recently purchased.

Here's what we were going to do.
Use a cooler to put the corals and fish in.
Use 5gal buckets for the rock
Try to keep as much water as we can.
Keep the sand in the tank
Dismantle all the equipment, Load the truck and go.

My question is, is it recommended he purchase new sand or keep the existing? Should he reuse the same water or make new water? I can make up water the night before for him. I also have a reef tank, should I house his corals until his tank is running and the levels stabilize? Do you think the tank will have an ammonia spike?

Does my method seem good.

Please let me know how you would move the tank and give suggestions or steps to take.

Bob

[landlord]

I moved a 29 gallon tank the exact same way.

I kept the sand.
I reused about half of the water, and made half new.
I would be reluctant to house someone elses corals, that ones up to you.
Depending on how much care is involved in moving the rocks wet and not stirring up the sand bed too much he should be fine.

Good Luck --landlord

[kstallbe]

Ive moved my 46g tank 2x now. Definitely keep as much water as possible and dont change the substrate (in here is all your good bacteria!). I would also leave some water in the tank to keep the substrate covered and happy.

If the trip is long (more than just a few hours) I would try to do something to aerate and heat the water. Others have used batteries.

After my move, I did have an ammonia spike. Moving all the rocks caused the death of some things. However, it only lasted 2-3 days. So, unless hes got really sensitive stock, I would think they could get through it.

After setting up in the new place, do something like 20% water changes for the following few days.

Good luck!

[Amoore311]

You need to keep heater packs in that cooler. Tape them to the inside lid of the cooler.

I moved the same distance, and the water I was transporting my fish in lost a lot of heat in that short trip.


Basically what I did was transport all of the rock in a large rubber made tote. I saved as much water as possible, turned out to be around 20 of 40 total system gallons.

I left the substrate in the tank with a very small amount of water in it. I could have rinsed mine out and it really wouldn't have made a difference. My sand bed is fairly shallow.

[Dobbs1101]

Thanks for the replies! I'll be moving it on Sunday, I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for the advice too. I'll keep all the sand in the tank when we move it and try not to disturb it too much. Keeping it wet is a good idea too.

It's only going about 15-20 min away but with some prep work we should have it going again in a few hours if not less.

[96vette]

I just moved a 72g bowfront a few weeks ago, fortunately it happened to be a mild sunny day in the 70's. The cooler and buckets should be fine, the only issue may be the temps depending how cold it is where you're located. Leave about 1" of water above the substrate in the tank and reuse as much of the same water as you can.

[_E_]

I just moved an established 75g with a 30 g sump a month ago. Sounds like you have a good plan. Keep every drop of water you can, keep the rock and any corals wet, keep things warm if it is cold outside, and leave a little water on top of the sand bed (try not to stir it if you can. Have some water made up at the new site in case you lose any in transit. When pouring water back into the tank, put a dinner plate on the sand bed and pour on top of it (less stirring of the sand). Finally, like another poster said several water changes (I did 10% every other day) and you should be fine.
Eric

[Macimage]

After refilling tank, get it up and running for a while and then do all your testing before you put all the fish back.

Joyce

[shootist]

Ive moved several tanks helped friends ect... Number one thing is expect the unexpected. Things seldom if ever go exactly as you plan them. It may be many hours before you are actually able to place the fish and corals back into the tank. I would move your corals and fish in seperate containers making sure the corals are not allowed to touch each other. Upon arriving at your destination immediately get a heater and powerhead going in each container so you are certain the livestock will be happy for however long it takes. I would also plan for two heaters in the tank to get the temp up fairly quickly. During the moving and the adding of the new water it will lose a lot of heat and it can take many hours to get the temp back up. You shouldnt have to worry about too many plumbing issues because you are using the same tank but dont count on it. IME when a tank is being moved or upgraded many times some plumbing part will break or need to be changed or re-routed for some reason or another and its always the worst possible time(so most the likely time) for some sort of equipment failure,heater,pump,ect.. Good luck with your move I hope everyone comes through in good shape.