Moving Aquarium

[RinaLane]

Hello. Just a quick question.
I'm building a house which will be ready by September so I'll have to move in there & take my 75G fish tank with me. It has 8 months old discus fish which is quite big & get stressed real fast. So how do I go about to move them? Its not a one day thing to set up again a full 75G fish tank & I'm sure I'll have to take out all plants & soil from it coz its extra weight to move it from 2nd floor & to new house... Anyone with experience?

 

[BaylorPerez]

As i have to move my 55 Gal tank to a different room im in the same area as you, basically what i did with my 20 is i kept the water in but emptied it til there was maybe 5-6 Inches of water left, as i put my fish in a ice cooler(one that has wheels so i can move it as well). just made sure to keep my air pump running while i moved it 

 

[Ch4rlie]

Not an easy thing to do, moving house and having to plan ahead for the fish tank/s.
 
It's not just stressful for the fish, its stressful for you too :x
 
Best thing is to plan and plan and plan ahead to have everything prepared in mind, maybe comiling a list of what you need to do and what you will need in regards of supplies may help.
 
Generally speaking, there are several methods, none particularly easy am afraid. If you're moving not too far away, i.e less than one hour away, that would make things a bit easier. But if further away by at leasst several hours, then more planning would be required.
 
So that would be the first thing we need to know, how far away are you moving to, then we can help plan accordingly?
 
Also, do you have any other tanks or empty tanks, even large plastic containers, you could set up as temporary homes for the discus etc?

 

[RinaLane]

I'm moving ~10 mins away from house i am right now.
I'm thinking to buy maybe like 30G tank for just dumping all my fish in it while 75G tank gets all empty out & even moving out from this house coz its on 2nd floor I cant leave anything in its already crazy heavy because its solid unit with stand. And I'm thinking I could maybe safe some water from this tank to fill it in? Start to take water up there & refill it in 75G tank?
But I have discus fish which is about 8 inch round & ~15 inch pleco + 3 clown loaches ~6inch each.
 I just have no idea where to put such a big fish... even to take them downstairs & to the car... I have no two wheelers or big enough cooler. For water changes I use 5G plastic box - takes a lot of runs but I have no space in this house to buy anything bigger (basically I'm renting 1 room here only with access to kitchen & bathroom but not to garage or basement to store things)
So I think it will take at least a week to move actual 75G tank & place it.

 

[BaylorPerez]

you should be able to ask your LFS to help you out

 

[Gruntle]

Taking some water would help to keep the water parameters similar to what your fish would be used to. However it might be better to move your filter to the new tank, because that's where your bacteria will most likely be living (in comparison water has virtually no bacteria in it).
 
Depending on what sort of filter it is of course, and whether moving it from a 75g tank to a 30g tank would cause too much water movement. At least see if you can move the media from the old filter to the new one.

 

[RinaLane]

I'm using Poret as media & I use Eheim canister filter. I have QuetFlow 55|75G with Poret too. And I will wash them before moving. Because canister filter is nursery for millions of snails dont want to move them too at least not all of them
With good aeration can 6 big discus fish survive in 30G tank for a week or so?
Oh I forgot I also have UV filter somewhere