Moving soon not sure what to do about my shrimp tank.

[tabletopfishguy]

Me and my fiancé are getting a place together (whooo!!! exciting!!) that brings the feared and dreaded event… Tank relocation (dun dun dunnnn), I have a 10 gallon with a betta and 6 ember tetras,and a few hiding baby neos. That should be an easy move since im aware of the number of occupants and its no more than 10, On the other hand I have a 5.5 gallon planted tank with a guppy pair and maybe a couple hundred neos…. only 10 of them are fully grown, the rest tend to hide in my stratum and moss and etc, my issue is i dont think id be able to keep the stratum after emptying it and i think id have a nightmare fishing little shrimplets out of a black muddy water for hours during the move that’s definitely going to be stressful on them. I guess my question really is, Can I keep my substrate in the tank along with water at the substrate level to make sure stray shrimplets are safe? id say there would only be about 1-.75 gallons of water in the tank. Would the water and substrate be too much for the tank to handle over a 25 minute drive? If theres any better more hassle free way of moving a shrimp tank with such a population? My stratum will probably crumble if try to take it all out

 

[Colin_T]

What are the dimensions of the 5 gallon tank?
It might be ok with the substrate and 1/2 inch of water. The main concern is the size of the base (length x width) and the thickness of the glass. If it is on a perfectly flat surface with some sort of padding under it, and you don't hit any speed bumps or potholes on the road, you should be ok.

The only other option is to syphon the water out of the tank and use a hose to go over the top of the substrate. You should be able to suck up the shrimp and not the gravel. If you do that each day for a week (or even once or twice) before you go, you should be able to get most of them out.

If you put a fine mesh net under the plants and lift it up with the plants in it, or have the leaves drag over the edge of the net, you should be able to get a lot of the shrimp out. If you have Java Moss in the tank, just stick a net under it and lift the entire clump of moss out and into a bucket of tank water. You will get 90% of the shrimp that way.

 

[powerdyne6]

Being a 5 gallon tank I would empty most of the water out of it (leave enough in for the shrimp) and get it onto a 3/4” plywood board.

That way you can carry the board without having to worry about tank flex