tank moving advice

[cap11885]

Upgrading tanks during a cross country move. Whats your opinion on moving everything directly into my new tank? And ideas on how to save my livestock from dealing with the new tank cycle?
Changing from 125g to my 220g. I'm bringing all my rock new sand a couple lbs of old sand to seed the bed and enough new water for the new tank. I'm packing all my live stock in coolers.

[ExpensiveHobby]

I would think enough liverock would basically eliminate the cycle altogether.

[ReefsandGeeks]

Following.

I'm anticipating a cross country move in the summer as well, pending work. If I do the move, I'm going to end up selling of my livestock localy both coral and fish/inverts because a 2 day trip across the country doesn't sound like a good plan for fish. Would be very difficultto keep their water bag peramiters safe for the trip. Plus they would have to be out of my curent tank before I could tear it down, and I'd have to get the tank set back up and running before they could be put in. If you're able to get them safely to the destination and in the new tank I think that would be your biggest hurttle.

After that, if you have plenty of live rock in there your cycle shouldn't be too bad. You'll likely have some die off on your rock, but there will also be alot of living bacteria left to process the die off.

Things I would consider trying to help your fish make it through whatever cycle may happen would be to do water changes to keep ammonia/nitrite down, maybe add seachem prime to reduce ammonia toxicity, and if you felt the need you could add bottled bacteria (thoug hwith live rock I wouldn't think it would be beneficial enough, as the live rock should have much more bacteria than the bottled stuff.

[tkeracer619]

Get your ro setup and tested. Pull a water quality report and see if you need to make any changes to the system before producing makeup water.

[cap11885]

I will be traveling with aprox 300g of newly mixed water.

[reefraider]

:fish1:It can be done!

I took a Grouper and a Trigger fish from Southern CA to Dallas and did it all again a few months later moving from Dallas to Northern CA. ( yea work )

It was summer, so I traveled at night figured 90 was better than 110 degrees
While they rode shotgun in the cooler in the TOY truck w a U-haul trailer.

I had enough water to set up the 10G (QT/goldfish Tank) on the only stop (w/ a air pump and heater). The next night they were back in the 40G with more new water and both survived it all, only to die later to sick goldfish!?!

Damn u lfs. (( Yes we fed live goldfish and used crushed coral and under-gravel filtration back then ))

Plan the route and drive like its the 24 hours of LeMans, your racing the clock. ( I did it in under 48 hours, crazy reefer! )
Oh I would put some air into that water before each use ( say just thirty mins) and NO FOOD (for fish)
God speed!

[rgulrich]

One other option to consider is to find a shop you trust that would be willing to hold and then ship for you. Yep, it would cost shipping plus whatever the shop would lay on top of that, but you would save your livestock (and yourself) potentially a lot of trauma.

I've made many moves through the years and exercised many options, from selling/giving away everything (it's really the same thing pretty much in the long run) to packing everything up and moving it to the new location. When I was facing a move back out west again, I contacted a dealer within driving distance about holding and then shipping all my fish, rock, and coral for me. His charges were very reasonable, and one that I was more than willing to cover as opposed to replacing everything at the far end.

Just a thought.
Cheers,
Ray