Moving House

[martyn21uk]

Okay, so I'm in the process of moving and am happy on all elements of how I'm gonna do the move. Its only about 20 minutes away so lots of my problems are solved. Its also quite warm at the moment so I'm quite cool about the temperature of the water enroute.

But my question is, my new water is from a different supply, and even though I haven't tested it yet, I'm sure it'll be different enough for me not to want to add the fish into a tank of brand new water. So how much of my old water should I get over there to reduce stress of the fish? I was thinking about 50%?

 

[ALW]

Yeh 50% sounds ok, just try and take as much as possible

 

[martyn21uk]

Yeh 50% sounds ok, just try and take as much as possible

I best get myself to B&Q for some buckets then!

 

[rabbut]

I would only take enough to move the fish. Just aclimate them like you would if reciving a mail order at the other end. Float, then slowly add new tank water to the bag over an hour or two

 

[Rooster]

I would only take enough to move the fish. Just aclimate them like you would if reciving a mail order at the other end. Float, then slowly add new tank water to the bag over an hour or two

Thats what I would do too... as long as its to temp, and dechlo'd then you should be ok.

 

[OldMan47]

Take enough for the fish to live in while you make the move. You can think of the rest as a large partial water change with a slight difference, the tap water may not be the same as where you are moving from. That's the only reason you would need to acclimate the fish.

 

[LauraFrog]

It might be safer to do a dripline. Put the fish in a bucket half filled with old water. Spread them over several buckets if you have a lot. Put the buckets on the floor next to the tank which has been filled with as much old water as you had, and then new water which has been treated with your usual water treatment. Run a thin siphon line into each bucket. When the bucket is almost full, empty out half of the water into another bucket and throw it away. By the time you've done this five or six times, the fish will be swimming in a mix of almost entirely new water. Net them and chuck them in the tank. This is the dripline method. It's good because if you do it slow enough it acclimates for temperature, pH, hardness, salinity etc.

 

[OldMan47]

That's a good way to acclimate anything Laurafrog but if you want to slow the adjustment process a little, tie a single knot in the tubing. You can adjust all the way down to a slow drip in the bucket by controlling how tight you make the knot. I have such a bucket sitting behind me right now for a move I am making from one of my own tanks to another. I happen to know the water in the two is not the same so I'm doing a drip acclimation. Its been going for about 2 hours so far and has only filled the bucket half way.

 

[rdd1952]

I really depends on the pH, GH & KH of the water you will have at the new location. If they are basically the same as the tank water, then you can move a minimal amount. If there is a pretty big difference, I would move 50% to 75% so that it's equivalent to a large to normal water change. You just don't want those parametes to change too much and cause problems. In your situation, I would think 50% would be a good number.

Buckets are the best way to move the fish too. You can put them in buckets and stress them a lot less than bagging them. They will also be in much more water so the extra waste/ammonia produced because of the stress will be much less concentrated in the larger amount of water. If you take say 25 gallons of water (don't know the size of your tank), you could put the fish in 3 buckets of 5 gallon and take 2 buckets with just water. Pour the 10 gallon of water in first and then you can start adding the fish. Once the fish and water are in, you can finish filling the tank and shouldn't have a problem.