Successfully Moved Tank!

[Irf]

Hi all,

Further to my post on Friday regarding moving of a large tank, I thought I'd report back on how it all went. You never know - some of the lessons/messages may be of use to others planning the same sort of thing.

The object of the entire exercise was to transport a 1.5m x 0.7m x 0.5m tropical tank and all associated equipment, substrate, rocks and fish some 30 miles from seller's place to my sister's place.

Took along the following -

* several plastic buckets for carrying rocks, coral sand, etc.

* one long hosepipe and three gravel vacs with tubes

* one large plastic rubbish bin with lid

* lots of OATA plastic fish bags, of various sizes, collected from past fish buying

* ten 40" x 20" plastic koi bags

* several nets

* a large piece of expanded polystyrene (from Wickes)

* one van and a car

* some strong and long cargo ties

The process....

1. Switched off filters and heaters

2. Emptied out around 50% of water

3. Removed rocks and plants into buckets

4. Caught cichlids and small plecs, and bagged them up. Large cichlids in their own bags, smaller ones with moving buddies, 2 queens together

5. Drained even more water, and then after much chasing and splashing scooped large (30cm) sailfin leopard plec into bucket - then emptied it into a koi bag

6. Drained as much water as possible

7. Collected as much coral sand into buckets as possible

8. Emptied filter media into koi bags with tank water

9. Loaded tank into van, placing it on top of polystyrene sheet

10. Put fish bags into large plastic bin

11. Put media bags into another bin

12. Loaded bins, buckets, filters, heaters, and cabinet into van

13. Strapped tank and cabinet down inside van using cargo ties and load rings in van

Then, as they say, we hit the road driving slowly. At home, we reassembled all filters, tank (on new home-made cabinet), etc. and started to fill with fresh dechlored water. Put fish in (very cloudy water), but it cleared up within a couple of hours.

Overall, only two losses - a couple of smaller Taiwan Reefs.

Can't remember if I've forgotten anything, but will amend the post if necessary.

Regards, and thanks to all who helped us with their advice.

Irf.

 

[jameshiggins]

did u keep any of the old water or just fill up with new?

 

[fishyfreak]

Congrats, the physical part is done. Transports are tough on them. I've had no losses as of yet, but it was a rough ride, then a week later they broke out with Ich, I'm currently treating them, looks good so far. I too used all the old substrate, filter media, rocks and almost half the water (90 gallons), the old water was terrible, they'd never done a water change. Best of luck over the next few weeks.

 

[Irf]

did u keep any of the old water or just fill up with new?

We mostly used new water, apart from what the fish were transported in. Not sure if that is good practice or not, but it worked for us.

Irf.

 

[Egmel]

did u keep any of the old water or just fill up with new?

We mostly used new water, apart from what the fish were transported in. Not sure if that is good practice or not, but it worked for us.

Irf.

It often depends on the size of the tank wrt to practicality of taking water with you. I took about half my water with me when I moved my 20G tank but so long as you acclimatise your fish at the other end (same as you would do when you get them from the fish shop) then there shouldn't be any problems. I just felt it was easier on the fish to have fairly similar water at the new end