How To Move Fish To Another Tank?

[AL_G]

Hi there,

We recently moved house so the tropical fish we had in our tank have been re-homed in a spare tank with our filter etc.

So the question is, now we've got our Tank in our new house, cleaned it out and put new sand in it, filled it with water etc. How do we go about transferring the fish in our temporary aquarium (round mother in laws house) to our tank. Obviously we'll need to get our filter back and put it in our tank and let it run for a while but what else should I do? going to bring the plants and wood etc across first but how long do we leave our new tank (containing new water) before we move the fish across?

Help please

Thanks

AL

 

[AL_G]

Wow, sorry for all the waffle.

In short I was trying to find out how long will it take before new water (I'd treat it with the water safe stuff to nutralise the chlorine) running a mature filter takes to be safe to put fish in? And should I transfer all fish at once or gradually over time?

Thanks again.

 

[rdd1952]

It kind of depends on how far away the onther tank is and how long it will take to transport the fish but here is what iI would do based on less than say 30 minutes travel time.

Move all plants, decorations etc into the new tank first so that it is ready for fish. Then go back for the fish. Put the fish in 5 gallon buckets of tank water and cover with a lid. Don't put so many in that they will use up the oxygen too fast. Save as much water as possible. Keep the filter wet so that you don't start losing bacteria. Once you get to the new home, set the filter and heater up and get them ready and then add the water and fish. Add what ever water you need to finish filling the tank. Plug in the filter and heater and your done.

The filter will already be cycled so there isn't any reason to let it run a while in the new water. Keeping the old water helps with acclimation as the fish are going back into the water they have been in. I would check the pH of the water you moved and the new tap water to see if there is a big difference. If there is, add new water slowly so as not to raise/lower the tank pH too fast.

 

[AL_G]

Thanks for the reply. It's only about 10 mins away so should be fine - wish me luck

 

[Matty P]

The tank will be ready for fish when all the water parameters are correct and stay correct.

 

[AL_G]

The tank will be ready for fish when all the water parameters are correct and stay correct.

But over what time period? 1 day, 2 days, a week, a month? Sorry Matty I'm not being funny I just don't know and don't want to get it wrong and kill all my fish.

Thanks again everyone.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

the only thing that makes the water safe for fish is having a mature filter on it. here's what i'd do

1 - set up the tank at your house, fill it with dechlorinated water and turn the heater on
2 - go to your in laws house (straight after filling up the tank) and catch and bag up the fish, take the filter media out of the filter and put them in a fishy bag with tank water in to keep it all wet
3 - go to your house and put the filter media back into the filter and get that rigged up onto the tank
4 - by this time the tank temp will have warmed up and you can now float and acclimitise your fish as you would if you'd bought them back from the store.

it can all be done at once, no need to wait more than the hr or two it'll take to get them tank temp up.

 

[AL_G]

the only thing that makes the water safe for fish is having a mature filter on it. here's what i'd do

1 - set up the tank at your house, fill it with dechlorinated water and turn the heater on
2 - go to your in laws house (straight after filling up the tank) and catch and bag up the fish, take the filter media out of the filter and put them in a fishy bag with tank water in to keep it all wet
3 - go to your house and put the filter media back into the filter and get that rigged up onto the tank
4 - by this time the tank temp will have warmed up and you can now float and acclimitise your fish as you would if you'd bought them back from the store.

it can all be done at once, no need to wait more than the hr or two it'll take to get them tank temp up.

Cool, thanks Miss Wiggle. The filter should be okay as it's an external type filter and so will be filled with water anyways.

 

[loachman]

Way I just did something similar, about a 30 minute move...

Set up the new tank, filter (new media), heater, water, sand, some plants (I'm still adding them slowly and letting it grow in), etc.

Give it a day or two just to stabilize the water temp and for the substrate "dirt" to settle. Make sure everything works as intended.

Get the fish. I put mine in a 5 gal bucket with a lid. Drilled a couple holes in it for gas exchange. I had about 10 inches of fish total. IME, driving seems to be enough agitation so you don't need airstones etc. as long as the fish load isn't high. Put the filter media in a bag/bucket with tank water...keep it wet.

Once getting back to the final tank, start acclimating the fish. I do a cup of bucket water out, a cup of new tank water in with the fish every couple minutes for an hour. It gives them a slow acclimation to the new tank's water. Also, put the old fitler media in the new tank. You can either make the filter media fit into the new filter or put the entire "old" filter on the new tank. This should insta-cycle the new tank.


edit: This is pretty much the same thing Wiggles said, I just like to have the tank up for a bit to ensure everything on the new tank works alright. Either way works.