Best Way To Close Down A Tank?

[KrystaK]

My 20 Gal isn't pleasing me anymore. I find it more of a job to clean and take care of the fish. With my 30 G I can at least sit there and enjoy it, but as my 20 G has established itself I find that it isn't interesting to watch, and I'm wasting money trying to get fish that would make it interesting when I'm not there to enjoy it. (It's in the living room, but the living room doesn't have furniture yet as I don't have the money to buy any yet

)  So I don't really sped any time in there....
 
So I'm thinking of closing it down....
It's current stock is:
1 GBR
2 Juli Corys.
 
I want to keep all the fish, but I recon my 30 G would be over stocked if I added them to it. (stock is in my sig.) 
There is a fish auction in town in late march, I'm wondering if I upped my water change volume if I could hold the GBR and the two cory's in the 30 G until then and them sell them. (I'm sure the Juli cory's would appreciate having other cory's to hang out with for a while, even if they are Panda's). Not sure how my GBR would do with my pearl gourami. She's pretty dominant and my GBR is pretty shy. There's lots of hiding spaces in my 30 G, but that would just make it hard to catch the GBR if I wanted to sell him/her in march.
 
I wish I could keep the Juli's, they're beautiful fish, more interesting than my Panda's.... But I just love my panda's and couldn't bring myself to sell them and try and get more Juli's.... unless I added more to the 20 Gal, but as I said, I'm just finding it a too much of a job to have both tanks, especially when I don't really spend much time around the 20 gal...
 
I think I'll leave the tank up until the auction and then take it down once I've sold the fish. Who knows, maybe I'll find pretty fish to fill it with at the auction

 
 
ANYWAYS, assuming I sell my current stock and don't buy more....
 
As far as taking the tank down, does anyone have any experience with this? I want to store it in my basement storage area in case I ever want to put it back up again, and in order to do this I need it to be dry so mold and other gross stuff doesn't start growing in the substrate. How could I dry the substrate? It's sand.
Also, I live in Canada and it's currently -10 C outside so letting it sit outside wouldn't really work

 

[techen]

Why so few fish in a 20Gal? I'd get bored of that in no time lol.

 

[KrystaK]

Because I introduce them very slowly, I had the GBR by himself for a month before I decided to add the corys. I really don't like stressing the filter as I feel like adding too many fish at once would over load the filter and stress the fish. 
 
I want to keep the Corys, but I could get rid of the GBR, my tap water pH is far to basic for him, but until I get furniture in the room adding anything to teh tank would be pointless as I'm never there unless I'm feeding them or cleaning the tank..... or playing with my cat, she claimed the living room as her room  

 

[Lunar Jetman]

What is your stock in the 30 Gallon?

 

[leighton_87]

What is your stock in the 30 Gallon?

30 Gallon Community Tank: 1 F Pearl Gourami, 3Platys, 5 Zebra Danios, 
5 Panda Corys, 1 Male Bristlenose Pleco, 20+ Cherry Shrimp

According to her footer

 

[KrystaK]

It's listed in my sig, but:
 
-1 Female Pearl Gourami (She's pretty dominant and territorial, though she is intimidated by my BNP)
-3 Platys all female, (they still drop fry occasionally but I have yet to see any survive my Danios and Gourami)
-5 Zebra Danios (I feel like adding a single Danio to make it a better 6 would just cause the single danio too much stress as he would be the centre of bullying for a while, but I'm not really sure I want more than 6)
-5 Panda corys (One died a few weeks back and I will eventually replace him)
-1 Juvi Male BNP, he's about 3-3.5 inches and I've had him for about a year now, since he was under an inch, but I thought they grew faster and I'm waiting fro him to reach the 4 inch mark to call him mature....
 
 
I know Cory's like to be in 'same pattern groups' i.e: all Pandas. They can be mixed if there is a large enough group of each, but only 2 Juli cory's isn't a large enough number me thinks. 
And I just know my Gourami would stress out my GBR so I think I'll go with the plan of waiting until march and seeing how I feel then about taking down my tank and selling my stock. Maybe I'll have furniture by then

 

[This Old Spouse]

If you rehome the GBR, your 30g should be able to handle the 2 julii with no problem. Then when you get furniture and another tank for your living room, you could move them to that tank and get a few more, along with whatever else you'd like.