Moving Home - Transporting Fish Via Car Ferry

[crazycatlady]

We're moving house and are hatching the plan for our established but relatively understocked 96l tropical fish tank. Inhabitants are manily angel fish, cat fish, tetras and loaches (total fish length about 50cm).

Our cunning plan is to use a 60l coleman coolbox for the transportation:
1. Empty the tank and let the removals guys take it.
2. Fish and plants go with 30l or 40l of tank water into the coolbox, along with the tank's filter and heater and are stored for approx 12hrs with the lid ajar overnight in the garage.
3. 6am the coolbox lid is shut and loaded into the car. 2hr drive and wait at ferry, 8hrs on ferry, 1hr drive and tank set up in new house. Allowing for delays, say about a 12hr journey with the lid shut and no heat source or filter.
4. Keep tank without substrate for a day or so while the fish settle then introduce a new sand / gravel mix for them.

Note - in a test today, 40l of water dropped from 22.5 to 19.5 degrees celsius when coolbox was put on doorstep outside in temperature of 5 degrees celsius and below, which should be the coldest the box will experience on its trip.

QUESTIONS - but you might also pick up on other flaws in our cunning plan or have tips on how to do this better!
1. how little water can you house 50cm of fish in?
2. what water to air ratio for the fish? should we do 30l water to 30l air or 40l water to 20l air or other?

Thanks for any advice, hints or tips!

 

[Mikey1]

to be honest, if it was me i would just sell everything and start over, not worth the hassle to me

 

[copps321]

should be fine im not sure on water/air ratio though but i know just in those plastic bags fish can stay alive for hours

 

[the_lock_man]

Why don't you obtain the heat packs that online fish sellers use, to help stop the temperature dropping?

 

[Flute]

They need enough water to be able to turn around in, but the really important thing is lots and lots of oxygen. Don't feed for a few days before hand, so that they produce as little waste as possible. As others have said, get some heat packs, and bubble wrap is another great help. Polystyrene sheets lining the outside of the cooler box will also help insulate. If you can I would open the lid every once in a while to allow new oxygen into the cooler box.

The other option is to bag the fish up in separate bags- the upside to this is that they wont be able to attack any of the other fish if they become stressed, i.e. the angel might start picking on other fish it can get to because of the stress and confined space.

 

[CezzaXV]

The other option is to bag the fish up in separate bags- the upside to this is that they wont be able to attack any of the other fish if they become stressed, i.e. the angel might start picking on other fish it can get to because of the stress and confined space.

I've had this happen with my dwarf gourami before.

Another upside to this would be that if ammonia production went up to toxic levels, it wouldn't affect all the fish, just those in certain bags where there was a problem.

A battery powered air pump might help, but would probably require you to run the pipe through an open lid which would speed up heat loss.

If it were me, I'd probably bag up the angels since they're the most likely to turn nasty if they get stressed, then float the bag in the box with the rest of the other fish. A heat pack would also be a good idea.