Moving a tank from one house to another.

[anybodii]

I was curious what others did to move their salt water tank from one house to another. I am moving soon and was curious how they safely did such a thing. I was thinking of removing the fish, taking about 50% of the water out, and put it in a clean container, take out all the rock and put it in a rubbermaid, and then move the fish, tank, rock, and water separately. I figured this way it would eliminate a lot of weight from just trying to lift the tank, it would keep the fish safe from anything that may happen on the ride over, the cleanup crew would be fine in the water/damp rubbermaid, and then I'd still have the water originally used so that no spikes of any kind occur. Anyone's thoughts, or what they did?

[entropygain]

Moving a tank is a bear. I've done several moves the last 5 years and each time lost corals and/or fish. You do get spikes in nitrites and other stressors.

Best to empty tank completely (don't try to move partially full tank, you'll break it).
Great time to update your system - if you can keep existing setup and gradually move to new one it will be much safer.
Everything will take longer than you think. Depending on the system you may need to do some replumbing, etc. All this time the livestock is sitting in buckets etc.
Give frags of hard to replace corals to friends as a backup.

Some details on your system would help: size? DSB? livestock?

good luck

[tsdpurdue]

I took a reef tank with me to college that I had to move back quite a few times. Best way I found was to take out all of the rock and place in Rubbermaid container (if its a lot of rock or a big tank will have to use a couple). Then siphon enough water out of your tank to cover the rock. You will want it submerged so that you do not have any die off. Get a 5 gallon bucket and fill with water and place fish and inverts in and place heater in it right until the moment u are ready to leave.. If its a long drive wrap the bucket in blankets to keep heat from escaping.

For the corals i removed them from the rock (ones that were attached) and I would actually super glue them to the bottom of a whip cream bowl (butter bowl works to). Then fill with water. This way it was protected from being smashed. I would then fill them with water and place in a rubber maid container full of water. The extra water helped keep the temp from changing drastically.

I had a deep sand bed so I knew I could not disturb it. i would siphon out all of the water and leave just enough to cover the sand bed.

Once I got to college I would set the tank back up. Place rock back in tank. Use the water from that tub and place it back in aquarium (I would try to bring 50% of my water with me) May not be practical if you have a large tank). Then I would add new salt water then add the coral and fish. It worked well for me and I did monitor nitrates and other parameters very closely for a month or so. Just making sure i did not get a mini cycle.

All of the times i did this, I only lost one fish (jumped out of my bucket when i wasn't looking) and one feather duster and it was because I placed it in with the rock and it got smashed.

I like what the other people said fragging and giving them to a friend or see if a LFS will hold them for you. Just in case something goes wrong. Then you would at least have backups

hopes this helps and if you have questions let me know

[TheKman]

I just did this last weekend for a friend. This is what we used to move his tank..

2x Brute 44gallon Cans
2x Styrofoam Coolers
2x Siphons
1x Spare Return Pump ( Easier to pump then a siphon ;P )

We simply filled 2 Brute cans half way, put the corals in 1 can, and live rock in the other. The fish and frags went into the styrofoam coolers which kept the water warm for the trip.. We then drained the water out the rest of the way and transported it with the sand in it only - we got to the new place and just did everything in reverse and it worked out great. Even though we did it over a Friday and their was 2 of us.. It would have been better to have a 3rd... Anyways, i hope i gave you some ideas to plan.

[LeslieP]

I just did this last summer, but I was only moving 2 miles away so I didn't need extra heaters and powerheads. I had to move the tank from the old house to paint behind the tank BEFORE I could move into the new house, and I was also on my own for this job. I wasn't sure when I would get to getting the tank back up again so I put a baby pool in the garage. The next day was livestock moving day:

Put rocks into several 5 g buckets (Home Depot), filled with tank water to cover the tops. Snails could go in here too.

Put corals into separate baggies filled with tank water, and put them in a bucket that I also put a bunch of tank water in - this was helping to keep a lot of the old water and also provided more temperature regulation.

Put the fish, other inverts in separate baggies in a bucket, also with old tank water.

Filled up more buckets with old tank water and a little of the sand from the very top of the bed, being careful not to disturb it. This was going to seed the new sand bed

Brought everybody over to the new house and put the old tank water into the baby pool. Put the rocks and the corals in, being careful not to squish anything, and then put the fish in. Adjusted new water to old parameters and slowly added some to get the volume up to fill the pool.

Went home and pulled out the rest of the sand to be dumped and cleaned out the tank.

This worked great for me because I wasn't sure where the tank was going to go in the new place, and we had other emergencies that kept me from putting the tank back up for 2 weeks. I rigged my lights up over the pool and that helped keep the corals happy.

Having everything laid out in the pool made it easy to take my time getting the aquascape and corals just the way I wanted it.

Not for everyone, but it sure worked well for me!

[anybodii]

Thanks for the detailed replies! This really helps! My setup isn't anything to brag about, and that's going to be a good thing lol. Its just a 30 gallon tank with 2 clowns, 2 bennys, a cleaner shrimp, and then the cleanup crew ( hermits, snails ) I was thinking of upgrading to a 55 gallon tank that I have, I have about 50 pounds of rock already so I think it'd be a good start. The replies sound good, since its only a 30 gallon I think a few 5 gallon buckets should get the job done, I have a power inverter for the car so I think I can keep the bucket with live stock warm, I'm only going about 30 minutes, and then keep them in the bucket until the old water is warm in the old tank. I think I'll just start the 55 gallon from scratch, and let this tank have a little bit more to it like corals and such, that way I have a good few months to get it setup. Thanks for the replies, it really helped and its nice to know what others did and that they had success... I've never had any livestock die and don't want a move to break that trend.