Moving my tanks

by **newbie916** » Sun Jul 19, 2009 3:22 pm

Hey guys,

This really sucks, but my wife and I are moving our family and my tanks. My 95 gallon has been up and running for 8 months and is as stable as could be. How would you guys recommend me to move everything? The 29 gallon is pretty easy and will only take a few hours.

Here's my plan:

- Mix up 60 gallons of new saltwater
- Drain the water from the tank into several large bins and Igloos I have for transport of my live stock
- Take all corals and fish out and place them in the bins with the water
- Take all of the live rock and place them in the bins
- Use remaining water in the tank to clean the sand and strain it. I know it's not ideal to disturb the live sand, but the other option is to put dirty sand in my tank after transfer.
- Take sand out
- Drain and dump dirty water
- Empty refugium the same as the tank
- Move tank and stand into U-Haul
- Place bins of corals and rocks and livestock into air conditioned SUV's.

Go to the new house and start setting things up. Only keep about 30 gallons of original water and place rocks where they used to be. Reverse the process.

How long do you think my tank will have to cycle? I want to transfer over the least amount of undissolved organics. Do you guys have any suggestions or better ways to move everything.

Last time I did this. It took me 14 hours

Thanks,
Chris

by **saltwaterpimp** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 1:34 am

I would recomend saving some of the exesting sandbed. to seed the cleaned sand, I made that mistake once...sandbed took a few months to establish...How far is the move thistime ?

by **newbie916** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 4:21 am

The move isn't that far. About a half hour drive from my house. I'm pretty sure the livestock should survive the trip. Thanks for the advice. I'll pull out 1/3 of it and not clean it.

by **puffedupseagull** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 7:38 am

just did a friends tank, moved it a couple hours away. kept the water kept the substarte kept everything. Kept the 3 inchs water at 26 degrees by a power inverter in a foam box then sat fish in bags on water in box.

Setup tank, let filter for 4 hours added fish, no dramas.

total move time 2 hours travel 2 hours setup 4 hours stand time. 8 hours total.

by **Snowboss4492** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 12:54 pm

you could move the 29 asap, let it run for a couple days and then move all the livestock into it and let them be for a week or so while the big tank settles back down, i know it would be crowded for a bit but if theres any thing flying around in the big tank it'll settle out before you reintroduce your stock..............i moved a much smaller tank in the same way, set up a nurse tank at the new house with no sand or anything just water change water from the main display and let the lil fellas chill for 3 days while the display settled out, it looked like a shit storm in there with the sand all churned up and and skimmer and filter worked overtime for a couple days, but no loses or any damage

Boss

by **newbie916** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 2:43 pm

Thanks guys..

I'm planning on moving my 29 gallon first and setting it up in my work office. Unfortunately, all of the corals are attached to the liverock, so I won't be able to fit it in my bigger tank. However, I just bought this tank on craigslist a few months ago and didn't have to deal with a cycle. All of the animals survived. I've just been doing 20-40% water changes to reduce any nutrient load. I think that's what I'll have to do. Weekly water changes for a few months after I move the tanks.

I heard that the water has very little bene bacteria and most of it's in the live rock. Do you guys think I should keep deep sandbeds? I have over 150 lbs of LR and 150 lbs of LS in my 95 gallon and 35 lbs of LR and 25 lbs of LS in my 29 gallon. Thanks for your help

Moving my tanks

6 posts

Moving my tanks

Moving my tanks

6 posts