Moving house

[Guyb93]

I’m moving house Saturday and the idea of moving is so stressful and on top of it all the added stress of moving my tank , my plan is to do it like a F1 pit stop no messing about out of the tank and back in the tank within a hour , ideally I would like to move the fish in the tank but a 5ft tank and stand full of water has to be 500lbs+ so the plan is to transfer all my fish into a 50l tub and move them tht way but have a horrible feeling about it all , I keep telling myself atleast my pleco will survive ahahah it’s not a far move around 2miles anybody have any ideas because I’m stuck on the tub idea atm

 

[kwi]

There are a few posts dealing with this, a battery powered airstone in the tub is a big help, if you can't get a battery powered one a USB one plugged into the car or a mains inverter. Some have even suggested blowing through an airstone manually.
Keep your substrate wet and filter wet.
2 miles isn't a far distance timewise but it'll still take longer than you imagine. Write out a plan/check list and visualise what you'll be doing beforehand.

 

[Guyb93]

There are a few posts dealing with this, a battery powered airstone in the tub is a big help, if you can't get a battery powered one a USB one plugged into the car or a mains inverter. Some have even suggested blowing through an airstone manually.
Keep your substrate wet and filter wet.
2 miles isn't a far distance timewise but it'll still take longer than you imagine. Write out a plan/check list and visualise what you'll be doing beforehand.

I plan on keeping my filter full of water and about and inch in the bottom of the tank , I estimate they will be in the tub for 1-3 hours as I plan on moving them by car around a hour before the van comes to move my house so they are already at the new house for when the tabk arrives , how long will the bb stay active on the tank surface without water ? My filter was due a clean on the week end but haven’t done it in efforts to try and keep as much bb as possible, my concerns mainly are temp as it is cold atm and 50l will get cold fast and oxygen , I currently don’t use an air stone in my tank and my canister makes plenty of water agitation , is pit stop fast as you can best shout I know it will stress the fish or would you say a slow move keep them in the tub for a day or two with the filter and introduce them back into the tabk slowly to reduce stress , I have no idea atm

 

[mhancock]

When I last moved house I moved the fish tank to a friend's place a few weeks before the move, then moved it to my house a few days after moving in.

It meant that when moving the fish, I could concentrate on getting that right.

 

[Guyb93]

When I last moved house I moved the fish tank to a friend's place a few weeks before the move, then moved it to my house a few days after moving in.

It meant that when moving the fish, I could concentrate on getting that right.

Problem is my tank is so large it would be more effort to move it twice I think the empty glass alone is 100kg or 220lbs because the bottom glass is reinforced so don’t really want to move it twice , I have people moving my stuff so my priority during the move and setting it back up but as you can imagine getting 500l of water treated and up to temp fast enough to get them out of the tub seems a task

 

[Colin_T]

see post #2 in the following link

Moving with fish?

Hi. I honestly didn’t know where to post this so I’m sorry if this isn’t the right place. Currently I have (approximate sizes) a 5 inch long, 8 inch long and 11 inch long comet goldfish, a 4 inch long black Moore, 6 African cichlids, and a male betta. In January, I’m going to be moving from...

www.fishforums.net

 

[mhancock]

Problem is my tank is so large it would be more effort to move it twice I think the empty glass alone is 100kg or 220lbs because the bottom glass is reinforced so don’t really want to move it twice , I have people moving my stuff so my priority during the move and setting it back up but as you can imagine getting 500l of water treated and up to temp fast enough to get them out of the tub seems a task

Indeed, good luck with the move

 

[jonny-5]

When I moved yrs ago I just bagged everything best I could including the tank water, Put the filter media in a bag with more tank water It was a bit messy but I didn't suffer any losses & the tank was fine, Just simply topped it up. But luckily I was only 20 mins drive away. Just thought I would chip in with my experience.

Good Luck, Hope it all goes well

 

[DAnCSF]

How did your move go?....alas moving is always stressful and hopefully yours went well. I'm going to pick up a used 100 gal and that's going take time. I will being emptying all of it from fish to gravel...luckily there's no rush to reestablish since I have enough tanks space to house the fish that the owner doesn't want any more.

 

[Ch4rlie]

I know your pain of moving house with fish tanks!

It IS stressful just thinking about it!

What I did was plan, plan and planned things in my head way in advance.

I had 4 tanks to move and the largest was just under 25 us gals / 110 litres so not a patch on your 500 litre tank.

What I did in the end was buy some cheap buckets from Wilkos, bought a bunch of fish bags of various sizesand some food crates.

Put all live plants in varying sized fish bags with a small amount of water. Put those in food crate with the tank decor / bogwood etc.

Pulled the external and HoB filters from tanks and into a bucket with some water, does not need to be a lot of water just as long as filter media is kept damp/wet.

Net all the fish and put separate specie groups in separate sized bags.

Netting fish is much easier without plants and decor in the tank, also draining about half the tank water gives the fish less space to escape to.

Then catching ALL those tiny cherry shrimps, was annoying tbh as there were many shrimplets that are so well disguised and hard to spot unless they move

Put the shrimps in fish bags with a little water and some java moss and IAL.

Put all the bags upright in the buckets, make it a nice snug fit so the bags don’t move around too much, cover with towels to make it dark for the livestock, less stressful for them.

And drain as much water from tank as possible, put some substrate into buckets with some water to keep moist and damp for the bb.

Once tank is pretty much empty as if you leave substrate in the tank there’s a risk of cracking the base glass so always play it safe.

Then move house.

And reverse everything in order, fill the tank with substrate and water first, use a dish or plate on top of substrate and put hose above that so the water flows straight to plate and this does not make a mess of substrate and cause messy water that takes ages to settle.

Add heater first to heat water and then filters etc.

Plants, don’t be too fussy, just add them into the substrate and you can sort this over the next few weeks after house move is completed.

Don’t forget to add tap safe / dechlorinator.

Add the fish straight into tank.

This will take at least 4 hours start to finish, well it did for me with 4 tanks!

Then have a cuppa tea and go phew am not doing that again!!

Edit - you only need about one third water to two thirds air in the fish bags with livestock, tie off by blowing air into bag (bit like a ballon)and double folding over end of bag and secure with elastic band tightly.

 

[DAnCSF]

Great comments - after replanting how di the plants do? was there a die off and re-growth?

 

[Ch4rlie]

There will be a bit of die off on some plants usually some crypts and vallisernias do this but usually they will come back after a wee while.

Add some root tabs to keep the roots happy and perhaps a little bit of liquid ferts to give the other plants some nutrients.

 

[DAnCSF]

Thanks...looking forward to the transfer in the next two weeks or so...

 

[Guyb93]

Ok the move is done , I think iv just got away with it , they hve been back in the tabk about half hour and iv tried to arrange it exactly the same so they know the spots and stuff but still showing stress apart from my pleco he liked the tub I think lol I’m glad my fish are hardy though as it didn’t go to plan really

 

[mcordelia]

Glad for your sake that it is at least over! Any lessons learned that you want to share?