How Do I Move A 55 Gallon Tank?

[moneycar]

I have to move in the beginning of may. I have a 55 gallon freshwater tank w/ 4 angels, 6 albino cories, 3 emerald cories, 1 chocolate albino pleco, and one banjo catfish. How would I go about moving them? I REALLY don't want to get rid of any of my fish. (I've had the angels since they were babies, and they're now huge and beautiful!)

 

[emma12321]

Hi,

Since you only have a few fish it should be easy, starve them the day before the move, bag them up or put them in a tupperware tub, if you bag them put them in a polystyrene cooler to keep the temperature up.

Drain the tank, bag the filter to keep the media wet, since its quite a smallish tank you should be ok to lift it with the substrate in if not bag as much as you can, bag any live plants.

Get to the new house place tank where you want it, fill it with dechlorinated water and turn heater on to get it to correct temp, add everything you removed minus the fish. Add the fish once the temp is ok. The fish will be fine if they have to stay bagged all day but bacteria will start dying in the filter after a couple of hours. If you can't set the tank up the same day put the fish in a tub or bucket with the filter and heater running until the tank is set up.

Take the tank in your own car unless the removal company are insured for fish tanks. Pack it last then it can be unpacked first.

Hope this helps

Emma

 

[Joeyg2100]

Just take all your fish out and put them in bags or some tupaware. Since you are moving only 20 mile then the fish will do ok. Make sure you do it as fast as you can. Take the fish out, empty the tank, take the tank to the new house, set it up, fill it, test the water, and then put the fish in. Just keep an eye on the fish to make sure they are doing ok. I would suggest putting them in buckets, this way they have enough water in there to cary enough oxygen.

 

[riverman444]

I've only had to move my tank once. I had 2 good-sized Oscars in it and instead of putting them through the stress and potential issues of a move, I let my good friend adopt them. He had 50+ gallon tank with a Jack Dempsey in it and has been keeping fish for a long time. They still have a good home to this day. Sadly, the Jack Dempsey had to move to a different tank.

I put as much of my tank water as I could in big plastic buckets that I got from a local grocery store. All but one had a lid. I put the rocks and gravel in a bucket with some water. I poured as much water as I could in to the buckets and then packed everything up.

I set my tank up at the new apartment, rocks, water and all. I let it set up for a few days and got more fish....smaller ones that eat less

My only advice would be to save as much of your tank water, rocks, and gravel as possible and move at the last possible moment. An extra set of hands will help too. A coordinated move is better than a hasty one.

As far as the fish, your move isn't that far and shouldn't take too long. A bucket with aeration of some kind would be good. Watch bumps on the drive.

Hope I helped a little bit. I'm not an expert in fish moving, but I'm sure you'll get ALOT of good info on this subject.

 

[WendyinWichita]

I moved a 45 gallon recently and had no problems at all. I bagged the fish, siphoned the water into 5 gal buckets and 1 gal milk jugs (I must have 50 of the milk jugs saved). Scooped out the gravel into a heavy duty trash bag inside of a 5 gal bucket. Emptied the filter and placed the biowheels and filter media into one of the 5 gal buckets with tank water.
Loaded it all up and moved it 30 miles. Set it all up at the new location, filled it with the saved water and topped it off with tap. (My tap is well water, so no chlorine) I did rinse the gravel because it was very nasty.

Put the fish back in and not one loss. If you have trouble with water temp, I have put a heater into a 5 gal with fish until they could be moved and also not had any problems. Be sure to put something on top of the bucket because they may jump out.