Moving House With Fish

nellie_nospu · Jun 13, 2008

As per the title really, at some point in the next few months I'll be moving somewhere about an hours drive away.
I have no specialist equipment, so any way of transport will be a good old fashioned bodge job i.e. salvaged fish bags, kept upright in a bucket.

Currently I have a tall skinny tropical tank containing platies and a bristlenose plec; and a "normal" coldwater tank with a shebunkin and 2 danios.

Logistically, allowing for tank draining, transport (traffic jams!), set up, refilling.... is it realistic to think they'll survive? Should they go in a bucket at the new house, so they've swimming room/air while tanks are being refilled? Or would that stress them even more?

gaz gun man · Jun 13, 2008

I personally have no experience moving fish, but what I'd do is once the fish are in the new house, place them somewhere quiet and dark in their fish bags until their tank is ready.

I think moving them from bags to buckets then from buckets to tank would be extra stress.

Remember people (myself included) have mail ordered fish before, which were packed with heat packs in boxes then shipped overnight. so leaving them in their bags for 4/6 hours should be ok.

once their tank is ready I would treat them as new fish, equalize the temp, leave the lights off etc.

Hope it goes well for you :good:

Colin_T · Jun 13, 2008

It’s easy to move fish and a tank. Get some 45litre plastic rubbish bins and half fill them with tank water. Put the fish in the buckets with an airstone bubbling away. Try to keep at least half of the tank water. Drain the tank completely and remove the gravel to another bucket. Put the plants in a separate bucket or plastic bag. Seal the bag up and keep it out of the sun to prevent the plants cooking.

Once the tank is empty put it all in the car and take it to the new place. Put a thick blanket or some foam under the tank while it is in the car.
If you get a “Power Inverter” available from electronic or automotive stores, then you can run a normal airpump or powerfilter from your cars cigarette lighter. This will allow you to keep the bucket with fish well aerated. Alternatively use a battery powered air pump to aerate the water.

When you get to the new place set the tank up and refill it with the old tank water from the buckets. Add some new dechlorinated water to top it up. Run the tap at the new place for a couple of minutes to flush out any residue from the pipework before collecting water for the tank. If the taps haven’t been turned on for a while you often get a build up of copper from the pipes. Then if you add this copper contaminated water to the tank the fish can die. Running the tap for a few minutes will flush out any copper and provide you with cleaner safer water.

Do a couple of gravel cleans during the week leading up to moving the tank. Clean gravel is much nicer to work with.
Clean the filter about a week before the move. A clean filter will have less rotting material in it and the bacteria will have more room and oxygen. If you can keep the filter materials in a bucket of tank water during the move they should be fine.
Don’t feed the fish on the night before the move or on the day when you move. If the fish have empty stomachs the water will stay cleaner while they are travelling.

Once you have set up the tank at the new place don’t feed the fish for at least a day. Then only feed them a little bit each day for the next few weeks. The less food going into the tank the less likelyhood of water quality issues. Monitor the water quality during this time and do a water change to dilute any ammonia or nitrite readings that might occur.

Move the house furniture first and do the tanks last. Try to allow a full day for the process. Small tanks take about an hour to take down and another hour to set back up. Bigger tanks take longer.
If all goes well the fish should be fine and you should not lose any.

dthoffsett · Jun 13, 2008

CFC wrote a very nice guide on how to move your fish. Give it a read and see if it answers your questions. :good:

How to move your fish

geo7x · Jun 13, 2008

Fish can survive bagged up for ages, exporters of fish (cories in particular I think) often have them bagged up overnight ready to be sent off in the morning and that's before they've even started on the journey.

CatLover · Jun 15, 2008

I have moved with my fish before, and it was quite simple. I used to live in Kentucky, and I was moving to California by U-haul. I made sure the fish were the last thing I packed. I got fish baggies from the LFS, and bagged about 3 fish per bag, depending on the size of the fish. I bought a cooler (but a bucket is just as good) and stood the bags upright in the cooler. I saved enough of the old water from the tank to fill up about 4 inches of the cooler. I had wood and slate, so I also stuck those in the cooler so they could stay in the water and keep the bacteria.

At any bait and tackle supply store, you can buy little tins of stuff that fisherman put in buckets of bait minnows to keep them alive for hours on end without any other source of air. I don't know what they are called, but the matter is a dark grey color and hard like charcoal. Just take a knife and scrape off a little bit into each of the bags of fish. It's safe for the fish, and it lasts up to 5 hours, so since your move is just one hour, you won't have to worry about putting anymore in after 5 hours.

I drained the rest of my tank, just leaving the substrate in the bottom, and then I started my trip. Once I reached California, I put all new water in my tank, plus the wood and slate. The decorations and substrate were crawling with bacteria, so my tank never recycled. After letting the water adjust to the right temp, I put all my fish in. I did not add the water I had saved in the cooler. By that time it was just too dirty.

So that's a more simple way to do things, and you don't have to worry about air stones or plugging anything up to the cigarette lighter. If you're just traveling 1 hour, you might not even need to use the tins from the bait and tackle store either. If you are afraid your trip might lead into 3 hours or more, then I would definitely get them just to be safe, and they are very cheap. This is the method I used to keep 25 fish alive during a 3 day, 2400 mile trip across the USA, and I didn't lose a single fish! Good luck!