Moving Tank Help

[darkfool58]

hi peeps
 
i am soon planning to move my tank and its too heavy to lift so planning to take all fish out give tank a clean and relocate and reconstruct.
 
Any suggestions/step by step guide to do this with avoiding issues that may arise from ineffective cycling/bacteria build up being created in the process?
 
Thanks Russ

 

[Ch4rlie]

First off, what sized tank do you have?
internal or external filter?
tank stocking?
plants & substrate?

where you moving tank to? A different room in your house or are you actually moving to a different house altogether?

that sort of information will help us draw up a decent plan for you.

 

[bricko]

Hi, I have previously moved large tanks by doing the following;
1. Draining water into a large water butt.
2. Add my external to the water butt to continue running and heating (eternal heater attached) water for fish.
3. Catch fish and place in water butt.
4. Complete draining of water from tank (placing some in buckets for plants if required)
5. Remove tank ornaments and clean
6. Move tank (with assistance)
7. Replace ornaments (and plants if applicable)
8. Partially refill tank with water from butt mixed with fresh tap water if required
9 Rehome fish into tank from water butt.
10 Transfer remaining water from butt into tank and top up as required.
 
Usually quite straight forward as long as you are running an external filter.
 
Depending on size of tank and assistance you might have you can 3/4 drain the tank with fish still in and carefully move the tank then simply refill in new location.
 
Hope this helps
 
Bricko

 

[darkfool58]

Ch4rlie
 
First off, what sized tank do you have? 8 litre
internal or external filter? internal filter, one of the boyu with the shelf at top
tank stocking? 4 angels, 3 cory and 1 clow loach and about 10 different types of fish.
plants & substrate? 2 plants and gravel
 
bricko
 
Do you recommend a partial water change as part of this way of doing things?
 
Thanks for your help so far

 

[fluttermoth]

I really hope '8l' is a typo 

 

[Metka]

I really hope '8l' is a typo 

I hope so too.... 8L would weigh about 15kg (with gravel and glass weight), you could just pick up the entire unit and move it

 

[darkfool58]

yes i meant 80 litre

 

[fluttermoth]

Ok...trust me; this is really not off topic, although it may appear that way at first.
 
Your tank is very badly overstocked. It does depend on how large and how frequent your water changes are, but it's very likely that the water in your tank is very different to your tap water.
 
This is called 'old tank syndrome' and it means that doing any kind of large water change could shock your fish, or even kill them. Before you move your tank you [/i] must[/i] test both the tank and the tap water (let it stand for 24 hours first) for both pH and nitrate.
 
If they are very different, you must keep as much of your old water as possible, as the fish will be used to the water they're in now. In this situation there is a lot more to be considered than just the moving of the tank!
 
Could you list all the fish you have in the tank, please? I can tell you now that the angels and clown loach should not be kept in a tank of that size. They will (or already have been, depending on how long they've been in there) become stunted which causes deformities and significantly shortens their lifespans.
 
If you can't get a larger tank (and for the clown loach we're talking a very large tank indeed) then you should really do the right thing by the fish and think about rehoming them before their health starts to suffer.
 
I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but on this forum we always put the welfare of the fish above people's feelings.

 

[Ch4rlie]

80 litres with 4 angels, clown loach, 3 cories and 10 different types of fish 

 
Thats a whole 'nother ball game!
(Fluttermoth already mentioned some things already while was typing this out but quite correct though)
 
Your question was how to move the tank, ok, 80 litre tank is not all that big, 2 feet length at most, you COULD take out most of the water and do things as bricko said if you are just moving to tank another area in same room or to another room on the same floor.
 
Keeping the fish stock in a large container with the tank water, bearing in mind to keep your filter/media in water as well, does not need to be switched on as long as it's just for an hour or two while you get tank sorted.
 
But must be extremely careful with tank if keeping gravel/substrate with minimum amount of water as possible and get yourself another mate or two to help you with all this.

 

[fluttermoth]

Personally I would never recommend moving any tank with any water or substrate in it. Tanks are not built to withstand those kids of stresses and I've seen far too many tanks split or crack while being moved to ever say it would be all right!
 
OP, if you could get back to us with the info I've asked for (exact tank stocking, and pH and nitrate of both tap water and tank) we can help you more

 

[KrystaK]

I have a 30 gal tank (115 lt) And I moved house in the middle of December. (And in Canada, the average outdoor temperature can be pretty cold.) 
Anyways, we moved the entire rest of the household (I wouldn't let my father and his friends move the tank without me there, and I worked the whole weekend we moved.) 
The heat had been off in this house since Sunday morning, and the doors had been open all day with people moving, but the tank was still at 72, which was only down a little from it's normal 75, which I was very impressed with, because I had my winter coat on the entire time I was working on the tank.
So on the Sunday night just me and my father went back for the tank. I've done the math, a 115 lt tank weights about 450 lbs full of water, whis doesn't include sand or ornaments, just straight tank and water. 
So what I did was bring a 15 lt bucket with me. I took out about 90 lt, there was only a few inches of water left in the tank. Then I took out all the fish out and out them in bags that I had saved from getting them from the pet store. Then I took out as much of the remaining water as I could. Then i took out all the larger decorations, I have a lot of drift wood in my tank, I took that out, but left the plants in. 
Now I don;t know how heavy that tank was, I personally think it was too heavy
My father and I lifted the tank and took it out and put it in the car. (Keep in mind, I'm a 20 year old girl with a pretty fine build)
We got it to the new house. (We brought the bucket of fish and the container of hardware too so it was all in one trip.
 
I decided I wanted the tank in the basement, which was finished. I wanted it there because there are only small windows, and in the old house I had a lot of trouble with algae because there were two floor length windows.
 
Anyways, the tank had an inch and a half of water logged sand, and getting it down a flight of stairs was the worst workout I've ever had.
 
Now that's just how I did it, and it's just a suggestion. I didn't loose any fish (And I actually left 1 cory in the tank because I didn't realize he was missing, and even he survived.)

 

[Ch4rlie]

Personally I would never recommend moving any tank with any water or substrate in it. Tanks are not built to withstand those kids of stresses and I've seen far too many tanks split or crack while being moved to ever say it would be all right!
 
OP, if you could get back to us with the info I've asked for (exact tank stocking, and pH and nitrate of both tap water and tank) we can help you more

 
Normally I would agree with this.
 
Hence why I say you COULD do things as bricko listed. But if the tank is small and just moving to another room on same floor with minimum amount of water and gravel, am talking about no fish or inverts and having 2 or 3 fairly strong guys being extremely careful to keep base of tank supported with wood struts under the base then its is possible to move an 80 litre tank which is fairly small and would be about the maximum I would even suggest trying to lift manually with gravel or sand (not rocks).
 
Anything over 80 or 90 litres, then not a chance doing this in this way, I would recommend to emptying the tank every time. It depends on circumstances in each cases I would say. But still a hell of a risk though even at 80 litres.

 

[mhancock]

I've moved 60l tanks with fish and substrate still in them by putting a board underneath the tank so it is fully supported at all times, also leave the sponge from the filter in the water whilst doing this.  Only a few cm of water, and protected in the car by old towels, which also keep it dark to reduce stress.  Not sure if this would work with a bigger tank.
 
I must endorse the comments above regarding overstocking and getting the fish used to new water (of course the latter depends on how regular and large your water changes have been).
 
Edit - where I have moved tanks like this, I should say that I got the car nice and warm before moving the tank in!

 

[darkfool58]

thanks for all the info, i realised i may have mislead people the 10 other types of fish where actually snails.
 
reading through all the different types of info i thin im gonna use KrystaK version as my guide as if fish can survive in that senario then the methods got to be good. will report back once i know more.
 
the info on overstocking, how can you tell that i have as the info everywhere seems to be very few and far between there is no guide that explains how to work it out and this is why it is best from a biological point of view?

 

[fluttermoth]

Fish have evolved to grow to a certain size and live in a certain way.
 
Some of the fish you have (the angels and the clown loach; as we don't know what else you've got) should grow too big to be able to move around comfortably in your tank. All captive animals, in most people's opinion, should have adequate space to exercise and move around and pet fish should be no exception.
 
Unfortunately, fish that are kept in tanks that are too small often suffer from 'stunting'. This does not mean that fish 'only grow to the size of their tank'; it means their natural growth rate is affected which, in turn, leads to deformities and long term health issues which severely shorten their lifespans.
 
In addition some fish, like your clown loach, live in groups of hundreds, or even thousands, of individuals in the wild. Keeping them on their own causes them to suffer a constant low level of stress which makes them nervous, less likely to eat properly and more likely to suffer from outbreaks of stress related illnesses, like fin rot, fungus and whitespot.
 
There are a lot of guidelines out there on stocking levels, but they're all a bit 'rule of thumb' and not to be relied on, IMO.
 
Anyway, when you have fish that are going to outgrow the tank stocking levels become meaningless and in your case, that's by quite a long way; the angels should get to at least 6" long, and a foot top to bottom, and the clown loach ought to reach a foot in length at maturity.
 
I hope that explains why we're all so concerned.