Moving Fish?

[z06vette387]

Hello everyone,
Quick question about moving fish. I am leaving for school on Aug. 25th. It's about a 3 - 3 1/2 hour drive. Now how can I move my fish successfully? I kept the bags that they came in from the pet store, can I put them in that? Can I put them in a cooler (NO ICE of course) to keep the tempurature of the water from rising to much? Should I stop every hour and un tie the bag to freshen up the oxygen? I am lost, please help?

P.S. My cousin has done it with a betta fish. But, I have 4 tetras and a cory cat in a 5 gal. tank.

Thanks, Matt

 

[Bullrock74]

Hello everyone,
Quick question about moving fish. I am leaving for school on Aug. 25th. It's about a 3 - 3 1/2 hour drive. Now how can I move my fish successfully? I kept the bags that they came in from the pet store, can I put them in that? Can I put them in a cooler (NO ICE of course) to keep the tempurature of the water from rising to much? Should I stop every hour and un tie the bag to freshen up the oxygen? I am lost, please help?

P.S. My cousin has done it with a betta fish. But, I have 4 tetras and a cory cat in a 5 gal. tank.

Thanks, Matt

I have ordered live fish online and they come packaged in a bag like the fish store gives you (inflated with air), but the bag is placed inside a well-insulated container...a cooler would do fine for this purpose. Situating the cooler in your vehicle such that it stays in one place will help, too.

 

[Tolak]

3 to 3 1/2 hours is a relatively short time when you consider fish that get shipped go 24 to 48 hours bagged. You can just put the fish in the cooler full of water for the trip. Fill it 2/3 full of water & tape down the lid to prevent jumpers or sloshing water. This will be fine for 4 tetras & a cory, I did it 6 weeks ago with a 15" plec, a couple of 5" iridescent sharks, and a half dollar size angel. They were in a 36 quart cooler for 2 hours. I've seen large cichlids & plecs in styrofoam coolers for 12+ hours at auctions, they do fine, or they wouldn't get sold. I've bought & sold angels, plecs, corys, you name it, that have been bagged for over 12 hours. A friend of mine that breeds panda corys bags the fish the night before the auction, they are bagged for close to 24 hours. 1/3 water, 2/3 air in a bag, that's it.

Don't feed them for 24 hours before the trip, and empty the tank completely before moving. No water, gravel, decorations, nothing. When you set up the tank, match the water temperature to that in the cooler. A cooler full of water will hold temp better than a cooler full of bags, not to mention having better O2 transfer with the larger surface.

One thing you may have to be concerned with is different water hardness & pH at the new location. This is much easier to deal with using a cooler rather than bags. You scoop out some of the water they were transported in, and drip acclimate the cooler. This involves using air line as a siphon, tying a knot in it so you get about a drip per second. What you are accomplishing is gradually changing the water in the cooler, which is from your old location, to water from your new location. You can tell by the level in the cooler how much has filled, after 50% to 75% new water, you can net them & put them in the tank.

 

[z06vette387]

ok, thanks guys. Now the one thing I was thinking about doing was taking the water that is in the tank now and puttting it into 1 gallon water jugs since the tank is only five gallons. I have an extremely fine water strainer so I can filter the water first. I figured I would do this and introduce the new water (city water from Utica, NY) slowely. Is this a good idea or not? Should I stick with "Tolak's" idea? Thanks, Matt