Moving to London

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Demi-Leigh Lewis

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Hello,

So in like 3 weeks of the 9th September (Monday) I will be moving to London and my fish will be coming with me along with everything else I will need to live there.

I was just wondering if anyone has any ideas how to carry 3 fish ( 2 black moors and a fancy goldfish fan tail) in a 2hr 45 minute journey? And the best way people think I should settle them back into things.

The main idea I had was to carry them in a black bucket with a lid over with they’re original tank water with me in the passenger seat of the car?


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I wouldn't bother taking the tank water. Make sure you have dechlorinator and once the tank is in place give it clean dechlorinated water. Make sure the gravel doesn't dry out completely and keep the filter media wet.

When you arrive the water the fish are in will be pretty polluted so don't put it into the tank. Just net the fish and put them into the tank as you would for fish you have just bought.
 
Feed the fish a little more often for a couple of weeks before you move.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean every couple of days for 2 weeks, before you move. This will clean the water and substrate and make it cleaner when you actually move the tank.
Make sure the new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Clean the filter a week before you move.

Do not feed the fish the night before you move, or on the day you move. Don't feed them until the day after you have moved.

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Get a large plastic rubbish bin with lid (45 or 70 litre bin). Half fill it with tank water and put the fish in that. Seat belt the bin into the back seat of the car. Use the side seat belt, not the middle one.

Get a power inverter for your car, you can pick them up from an auto store. They plug into the cigarette lighter and you can run normal electrical appliances off the car batter. They convert 12volt power to whatever your country uses, and have a normal power socket.

Connect a normal aquarium air pump to the power inverter and run an airline and plastic multi-coloured airstone into the bucket of water with the fish.

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On the day of the move, empty the aquarium and put the gravel into a bucket.
Put ornaments in a bucket.
Put any plants in a bucket of water.

If you have a power filter, clean the filter materials and put them in a bucket with some tank water. You only need a 1/3 to 1/2 bucket of water for the filter media. Keep it in the shade so it doesn't cook.

Rinse the tank and filter case out under tap water, dry and put in the car.
Put the tank on a blanket or foam mattress and put some pillows around it to stop it moving. Do not have anything in the tank while it is being moved.
If you have coverglass, put them on the empty tank and sticky tape them in place.

If the weather is hot, have the car's air conditioner on so the water doesn't heat up and cook the fish.

When you get to the new place, put the tank in its spot and set it up using the water you took, then top up with dechlorinated water.
 
The air pump is a good idea. Hopefully I don't have to tell you however long your satnav (or google maps) thinks the trip to London will take is completely irrelevant, especially at this time of year.

Good luck with the move.
 
I agree with Colin T. I have been reading on moving fish lately because I am planning a move in a couple of years with many tanks. You should take 1/2 of your tank water with you. If you are going to use the same filter, substrate then put it in another bucket with tank water to preserve the beneficial bacteria. Make sure the lid of your bucket has a small hole for oxygen. Good luck!
 
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Follow what Colin said. I did almost exactly what Colin suggested with my BN pleco when I moved cross country. You can buy bait aerators(battery operated, last 48 plus hours before you’d need to change batteries) that work great and are cheap if you don’t want to go the converter route. I still have the two bait aerators from my trip and they’ve come in handy on the rare occasion there is a power outage. My trip took about 5 days and my BN pleco is still alive and thriving. My bucket didn’t sit too well in the car seat even buckled so I moved the bucket behind passenger seat with the other bucket of aquarium decor, tank water etc and pushed the seat back until none of the buckets would budge.
 
I have been reading on moving fish lately because I am planning a move in a couple of years with many tanks.
If you are moving a lot of tanks and have some time to move them, move the fish out of half the tanks and put them in your other tanks. Empty their tanks and move them, set them up and come back for all the fish. Move the fish into the tanks at the new house, then come back and move the remaining tanks.

If you have to move a lot of tanks over a large distance, get plastic bins and put the fish in the bins with an airstone. Empty the tanks and move them onto a truck. Put the fish in a car or truck with aeration. Go to the new house and set them all back up.
 
Can i just add that you should check the water at the new place compared to the water in the current place, I moved from London to Manchester and killed my fancy oranda because I didn't do my research properly....
 
London has very hard water, some call it liquid rock.....
 
We don’t have a cigarette plug only usb as it’s an automatic bmw that we are moving them in with my stuff, is there anything similar that can be used via usb?

Also thank you all for your help! Xxx


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I heard that there are these stones you can add to travelling fish that is meant to help with o2 or am I getting confused with something else?


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The only other type of air pump is a battery operated one. You can buy them from fishing shops, pet shops or Ebay. They are often sold as bait pumps. You get single outlet and double outlet types. Some use 1 battery and others use several batteries.

You use to be able to buy Oxy-blocks, that apparently put oxygen into the water but I never managed to confirm if they actually worked because I couldn't get any.

If you are really stuck for air, use a normal airpump while at the house, and then run a length of airline from the bucket to the front seat and blow bubbles into it yourself. You don't need to blow air into it all the time but do it every couple of minutes and that will aerate the water during the trip.
 
Thanks you all so much! [emoji3590] I shall look for the battery ones then!

If I manage to keep the gravel and the filter and all that maintained for the journey will I need to cycle the tank again when arrive? Kinda hoping I won’t have to because they’ll be ok a bucket [emoji21]


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If your filter media and gravel has remained wet with dechlorinated water (tank water) you should be able to avoid cycling again.
As Nic1 points out, the water will be different, so fully acclimate the fish when you put them in the new tank.
 
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