Transporting Fish Tips, Advice Needed

[Thommo]

Hi all,

In a month I am getting all of my fish of a guy at work as he is dismantling his tank. He lives about 45mins away and I was wondering if I would need to do anything special apart from the usual fish in a bag.

I currently have a range of Fish bag sizes extra large to small and also a couple of styrafoam boxes with the bags in them from the LFS.

The fish that I will be collecting from him are as follows

6 Discus, largest about 150mm rest between 100mm and 130mm

4 Clown Loach, 1about 150mm the rest 100mm

3 Bronze Catfish

1 Pepper Catfish

12 ish Rummy Nose Tetra

20 ish Cardinal Tetras

10 ish mixed Tetras

Advice, Hints, Tips will be much appreciated.

Thanks in Advance

 

[OldMan47]

The biggest concern you will have is making sure you have a suitable place to home all those fish at once. That would be quite a load to try to put into a single tank at one go. You will need at least one fully cycled tank to hold them and because you are not living next door you may need to drip acclimate them. If you are making the exchange at work, be sure you do not have too much water in the bags. If there is enough water to cover the fish properly, the rest of the bag should be devoted to air.

 

[smegforbrains]

Try and get his mature media from his filters as well


Pop them fully submerged into a tupperware container or similar with tank water in. Just get the media into a filter at your end within 3-4 hours

 

[emma12321]

Hi,

bag the discus and clowns individually the corys and tetras can go in groups, the loaches would be better off in solid containers than bags if possible as they puncture bags with their spines even when double bagged.

Emma

 

[Jimbo1984]

I moved house last year, albeit only a few miles down the road.

I bought a couple of 25 litre buckets with lids which enabled me to transport not only the fish but a large amount of the old tank water. Infact I didn't need to add any new water once i'd set up the tank again as I did 2 trips, putting all the fish in a holding tank whilst I took their tank and 1/2 the water in the buckets to the new place.

Anyway, this probably isn't practical for you as you live further away. But as there's quite a distance between your place and where the tank currently is, it's likely there's a difference in tap water parameters. I'd try and transport as much of the old tank water as you can, which is obviously what the fish are used to. This then alleviates the added stress of placing them in completely new water once at your house. Then just top it up with new stuff.

Are you having his tank? Or setting up your own?

 

[Thommo]

Hi all thanks for the quick replies.

I currently have a Aqua one Aquagrande' 150 aquarium which I have commpleted a fishless cycle and has been running for 5 weeks witht the cycle completed in 3 weeks.

Not sure what he is doing with his own tank but as far as media goes, I should be fine with my cycled media shouldn't I. He has a 120 aquarium which is the next step down from mine and hae said he has never had any issues wiht ammonia, so I assume that my filter shoulld hbe fine.

Thanks for the tip with the loaches, I would have hated to get home and see shrink wrapped loaches

I have got his water stats and suprisingly he has pretty much the same peramiters as he has so looking good. The only one that is different is the kH which he was adding to increase it to what I have got anyway out the tap.

I'm getting them staight from his house and heading straight home!

 

[Schmill]

You say your filter cycled 2 weeks ago. Do you have anything else in the tank now, or have you continued to dose your 5ppm of ammonia each day since the cycle completed, or did you just stop once the cycle was completed?

 

[Thommo]

Yeh I'm still dosing.

I would really much prefer to get som fish in there NOW. But have to wait until it is convieniant for every one involved. Myself included. The lucky bugger I'm getting the fish off is overseas at the moment.

No fish to speak off. I'm assuming its all or nothing in regards to fishless cycling. Am I correct?

 

[Schmill]

Yup, you are doing correct, I just wanted to check

I'm in the same situation, I finished cycling just before xmas (well, as close to finished as I can get), but my LFS didn't have the fish I wanted in, and no mail-order companies would send out over xmas, new year, or even in this sudden cold weather we are having, so I to am still dosing.
Thought I might get fishes in for xmas, instead all I bought was another bottle of ammonia - lol

When you complete a fishless cycle you have built up a significant amount of bacteria in the filter, and when you stop dosing it will die back to
match whatever you have in the tank at that point. If you have nothing in the tank you lose all the bacteria, if you have a few fish, (which I had been tempted to get from the LFS), then it will die back to a level to cope with those, and then you have to be careful of 'mini-cycle' when you add more fish, so yeah, as annoying as it it, I think continuing to dose the way that you and I are is the best way to go

Just don't forget to do a large water change the day before you are due to get the fish to get rid of the excess nitrAte that will have built up. I say the day before, as it usually takes my tank about 12-18hrs to get back up to temperature after a large 'cold water' change.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

but to look on the positive side of things for both of you, after a normal cycle, even if you do a qualifying week there's still a chance of a mini cycle when you add fish undoing all your hard work. the longer you wait before you add fish the safer it is so you can sit back and relax knowing you have just about the best possible environment for your new fishies to go into whenever they do turn up.

 

[Thommo]

But I want fishes NOW!

Thanks Schmill. You'll may be happy to know that I have been following your Cycle diary with interest to see how it was going as I started mine not that longe after yourself. You are doing a great job. Just need to update it every half hour though to keep me going
I was lucky, I think putting the plants half way through really sped things up for me.

Prob I have at the Moment is actually I have 0 Nitrates as the plants can't get enough as I've got CO2 going. Might have to turn it off cos I really didn't want to do dosing.

Any whoo thanks for the replies


Anyone know how large a bage should be for 150mm Discus. I've got the largest ones you can get from the LFS, they should be ok shouldn't they?