Moving my tank

[Rodders]

I have a Jewel rio 125 tank and stand.

My plan to move it was to empty all but a few inchs of water, leave the fish in there and move the tank in a van to new house and put back on stand. Do you recon this will be ok or will the bottom of the tank break?

Would putting them all in a bucket and emptying the tank completely be better?
Think i will get away with a few inchs of water cause its quite a small tank....?

 

[Ethos]

For Keeping them in the tank:
Its risky..... how far is it from the old house to the new house? Is there many stop lights, stop signs, ect? Or is it freeway most of the time? I reckeon if you dont stop alot, the fish'll be ok, and if you use 3 or 4 people to be dedicated to moving the tank, yes, I believe its possable.
But you should have someone in the back, or where ever you put the tank, so that they can stop it from moving around, and slamming against stuff, ect.

Once again, yes, I believe its possable.

For putting them in a bucket:
If you do put them in a bucket, just keep it in the back seat with someone to keep it from jostiling around. Either way is possable, but I'd go for the bucket idea, just because its safer for you, and the tank.


Edit: If anyone has any objects, please speak up, because I've never moved any of my tanks, more than a few yards.

(I have transported 2 danios on a 2 mile bike ride before, to my friends house though. And I tell you, when your transporting something like that, everything matters to the bumps on the road.)

 

[Tolak]

Where I work the owners son decided to move his 72 gallon bowfront into the office. I told him empty everything. He left the gravel, a couple inches of water, & the fish.

There is now a nice crack in the cross brace on top, It's opened up to around 1/8". That's how much extra the glass is bending out at the top. Glass will bend, but not much. He's still waiting for the machinist we outsource some work to to show up & build a metal brace to epoxy across the top. It's been cracked for around a month now, some day that office will be real wet.

He sits around 5 feet away from it at his desk. If he comes running into the shop soaked we'll all know what happened.

Empty the tank. They are only designed to be structurally sound in a static position. You may get away with it, the tank may be fine for quite a while. You may cause some damage & notice it right away. You may cause some damage & not notice it, get by for a little while & end up with a lot of water everywhere.

Would it be easier to empty the tank all the way now, at your convenience, or to clean up all that water, gravel & other tank contents at, say, 2am, out of the blue?

Tolak

 

[afireinside]

Yes, remove everything from the tank. Than, protect the tank, but like covering it with foam, soft cushony stuff.

 

[Fiori]

Don't mean to hijack the thread but when you say empty the tank, do you mean the substrate and any plants as well? Would that harm plants in a well established tank?

 

[fawnmodel]

so long as you pour the wet gravel into sealable buckets or rubbermaid, same with plants, and bucket the fish, bucket the filter and keep it wet. you can simply add water when you get there, along with reaclimating your fish and making sure the temp is right. You may want to have your inner goodies moved there in a car with a passenger or two that can help keep them safe en route.

Otherwise, you can def ruin the tank due to the weight of what is left inside when moving it around, as you see above.

 

[yvez9]

I moved a 50 gallon tank 2 months ago.

I would've never left anything in there. the glass is heavy enough by itself.
I put all the fish in bags, gravel in a bucket and moved everything like that

got to my new place and put the gravel in and then put water and decorations, and finally readapted the fish like when i buy them,. they all survived fine!

my 5 and 10 gallon tanks i took out the fish but ket about half the water and substrate since there is little substrate in them and they are quite light. anything bigger than a 10 though is too heavy to keep water in