Moving soon, what to do?

[TAANG]

Hello! My husband and I currently live in Texas. In a few months, we will be moving to California and taking our 20 gallon tank with us. We have two true percula clowns, one mandarin goby, two orange mini sea whips, one blue mushroom, one rock anemone, various hermit crabs, 2 porcelain crabs, 2 emerald crabs, and lots of snails. We have 23 pounds of live rock and about 20 pounds of live sand. What would be the easiest and best way to move this half way across the country? Don't want to lose anything!

[maddmaxx]

many buckets wit lids from lowes or home depot lol.... id keep personally mix up a batch of saltwater for a water change, but keep the water you take out. i would put the rocks in the buckets submerged wit the tank water. also put the fish in a bucket with tank water. you can mix up new saltwater to keep the sand submerged in another bucket. corals can be placed in individual bags like a LFS would do or they too can go in their own bucket. inverts can also get their own bucket..... this is how im goin to be doin by moving process and i have a 220g tank. so i can see a much much higher success rate for your 20g nano.....try to keep any buckets that have anything live(inverts, corals, fish) in your car with you so the temp is stable...

[cody6766]

That's a long trip...

I'd put the rocks and water in Home Depot buckets, make fresh water and new salt water before leaving and store in buckets as well. Put your fish in a bucket with a battery powered bubbler. Bag your soft corals by type (zoas in one bag, rics in another, etc) and your stony/sps corals individually and toss them in a good ice chest. Keep a heater, powerhead, light and 10g (or your 20g) tank in a place that you can pull out with your critters. Once you get to the new spot, fill the tank with water, get it up to temp, acclimate your critters like you would if they were new from the store and put them in the holding tank while you set your life back up.

I've moved my tank from OK to FL, then back to OK using the above methods. The only difference is I put my fish in bags. I drove straight through, so they never spent more than about 30hrs bagged. The first trip I used pure O2 in the bags via a borrowed O2 cylinder. The second trip I used breather bags. I'm not sure if either was necessary, but the O2 was free and the bags were cheap. I recommended the bucket for your fish because you're probably going to be driving a longer distance. The bucket would give you the chance to feed, change the water and not let them suffocate in a bag.

I had zero losses on my trips.

[TAANG]

Thank you both for the responses. My husband and I had discussed using breather bags as well, but like you said...the trip is going to be a pretty long one. The fish in a bucket idea is a good one. We also discussed leaving the sand in the tank and just leaving it covered with tank water for the trip. We have a couple styrofoam containers that we saved (we ordered a few corals online) that we were going to put the bagged coral and whatnot in with an icepack (exactly like they shipped it to us). I am thinking about convincing my husband that we need to just upgrade to a bigger tank when we get there and use our 20 gal as a holder for a bit. But, with the price of the move...I am thinking that the upgrade will have to wait a few months. Wishful thinking!

[cody6766]

You're going to want to change out the sand. The move will stir up all kinds of nasty stuff and there's a good chance the tank will cycle again when you set the tank up. Save a cup full of it and add new dry sand to the tank when you get to where you're going.

[TAANG]

That's what I was thinking too. Should I get live sand or just regular sand?

[Craigdillman]

just go with regular sand and like above keep some to seed it, if you have live rock the new sand will become live pretty quick and most "live sand" isn't all that live on the shelf of the store

[TAANG]

Great, thanks so much. I appreciate the help. Regular sand is a lot cheaper on the wallet! haha. We won't be moving for a few months, but I want to do lots of research and try to find the best way to do it so we can keep everything alive :)

[cody6766]

just go with regular sand and like above keep some to seed it, if you have live rock the new sand will become live pretty quick and most "live sand" isn't all that live on the shelf of the store
shack. I haven't bought live sand since my first tank. It's cheaper to get the dry stuff and just seed it via your rock or a scoop of sand from another healthy tank and it works the same in the end.

[chad p]

Have you considered getting a power inverter to plug into the cigarette lighter?

We use one for road trips so the kids can watch movies and recharge their video games etc. I used one with an extension cord once during a power outage to power my MP10 and heater. That way you could run a cheap air pump and keep water circulating in your rock bucket. If you see water temps dropping in your fish bucket you could even run a heater.

The power inverters are pretty handy and they aren't that expensive. Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

http://www.amazon.com/outlets-inverter-adapter-notebook-MRI3011BU/dp/B004MDXS0U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373747604&sr=8-1&keywords=car+power+inverter

By the way...welcome to California! Just pound a couple of cocktails when writing the mortgage/rent check and other than that you'll love it.

[ryeguyy84]

I second the inverter, how long is the ride? During hurricane sandy I macgyver'd a battery backup system to run my vortech so that might be an option as well.

It consisted of a sealed lead acid battery some wire, a fuss and a connector from radio shack. I actually still have it connected.

[cody6766]

That's a good plan for home outages, but it's definitely overkill for a move. Remember, these critters are shipped all over the world before we see them. They can handle careful packing/shipping. You just have to plan it and minimize bag time as much as you can. It gets more tricky with larger fish, but my smaller fish did just fine in their bags for around 30'ish hours, hanging out in a cooler. A good ice chest will keep temps very stable. Our first move was in January, OK to FL, and the bags may have cooled off 5* in the back of the U-Haul. The water in the buckets was really cold, but the ice chest was great.

The inverter isn't a bad idea and can be used outside of reef stuff. I woudn't buy it just for the trip, but if you can use it for other things later, I'd say it'd be worth it over a battery powered pump. I'd still use an airstone over a powerhead though. You need oxygenation, not circulation, for the fish. Circulation will help with oxygenation to a point, but bringing in fresh air is mo-betta.

[TAANG]

Great advice! We actually have an inverter that can be plugged into the cigarette lighter. We can definitely use that to circulate the water in the bucket with the rocks. As far as a heater, I am more worried about the water getting too hot on the drive in this hot weather (from Texas to California). Our thoughts were to bag the fish in breathable bags in a styrofoam containers and pack ice around the bags to maintain the temperature. This is how we had some stuff shipped to us. We saved the containers, and the ice packs which can be refrozen. I'm not sure how long the drive will take, I know that we will be stopping over night.

[calistyle]

I would make a checklist of 3 main areas:

texas - preparing everything for transport
travel - what to do while traveling
cali - what to do on arrival

This will make it as easy as possible and help with no missing a vital step.

[calistyle]

However, If it was me, I'd sell livestock to friend/local club and enjoy a move with slightly less stress. Once you get to cali (depending on where) you'll have plenty of places to visit and check out LFS/Clubs.

Gives you a chance to familiarize youself with the area and meet other reefers.

[calistyle]

I moved my 34g in december and it was a local move (7miles). Here's the checklist I compiled:

34G Solana Tank Move

On final water change before move, blow off rocks for any loose debris and siphon out during water change.

Supplies:

• 5 – 5 Gallon buckets w/ egg crate at bottom, lids for top
• 3 – 5 Gallon jugs of new salt water
• 2 – Air pumps w/ hose and air stones
• 2 – Heaters
• Shims / Level
• Prodibio Bio Digest & Prodibio STOP Ammo (to help control any ammonia/nitrate spike)

Plan:

Prior to Breakdown:
• Box up and supplies and un-used equipment in advance

Breakdown:
• Unplug and remove all equipment from aquarium
• Siphon 3 gallons of water at a time into 5 gallon buckets. As rock is exposed transfer to buckets (leaving corals attached), carefully placing on egg crate to keep from moving around
• Carefully remove fish using clear cups to a bucket with 3G of tank water and insert air stone
• Leave sand bed (30-35 lbs.), base rock (15-20 lbs.), and about 1 inch of water in tank

Once rock, coral, fish are secure in buckets:
• Transfer tank from stand to moving stand (custom build one w/ wheels, same height)
• Move the tank on the moving stand to truck
• Carefully move from moving stand to 2x4’s in back of SUV. Secure
• Have car running at 77 degrees
• Bring out buckets and secure in SUV
• Drive to new eco-stadium (house) very carefully, minding turns and proper route

Once at new location:
• First unload buckets of livestock into controlled temperature house and use heaters if temperature has dropped below 75 degrees.
• Setup stand in new location, verify tank is level (If not, use shims)
• Add 5G-10G of new salt water (due to loss of water)
• Test for leaks
• Stack rock back in place, adding old tank water as needed
• Setup equipment (pumps, skimmer, media)
• Use Prodibio Bio Digest & Prodibio STOP Ammo (if needed)
• Add fish and remaining 3G of tank water
• Monitor parameters
• Perform a system check on equipment

[Breadman03]

Honestly, CA has a huge community with tons of resources. You might consider selling off your current stock and buying new when you get settled in.

I know when I arrived in CA, I couldn't wait to hit the Main Streets and beaches. Seriously, SoCal is beyond beautiful.

[TAANG]

Wow! Thanks so much for the check list. Thought about selling our fish and corals that we have now, but I have already became attached to them. Haha. Right now we are still going to try to move everything, but if we think it will be too risky, we will definitely sell. Don't want to risk the lives of these little guys. I am really looking forward to CA's salt water stores. Here in Texas the stores are pretty sparse.