Tips for moving my tank to a new house

[arminkropp]

Wondering How I should go about this. The new house is about 10 minutes from where I live now. My tank is a 50Gal with LR assorted polyps and zoo's.
I Have 4 fish, blue linckia, Hawiian featherduster,cleaner shrimp and some snails and hermits.

So far I'll try to save as much water as I can.
LR into rubbermaid with heater and PH.
Livestock into another Rubbermaid with heater and PH
rest of the water into rubbermaid containers or 5Gal water jugs.
I'll leave the DSB in the tank while moving.
Tank will be transported in a van with a 2" styrofoam sheet underneath it.
PH's and heaters will be run via power inverter.

Any other pointers or suggestions?
I'm trying to minimize casualties.

 

[Guest]

sounds like a plan to me.
Just leave enough water to keep the sand bed under water.

I would only save about 1/2 the water, good time to do a nice water change and reaquascape.

Drive nice and slow.

 

[Guest]

your plan sounds good....i did the same thing you did when i had to move my tank.

 

[Brenden]

Sounds good. I would leave just enough water on the sand to keep it wet and minimize sloshing.

 

[dorian965]

yea, ive moved my tanks 4 times now with about the same procedure and have had no casualtys. i always try and change about half to 3/4s of the water. make sure you get the water you plan to save before you disturb the rock and stir up all the crud, that way you get good water. i just moved one last week and noticed that my pho4 shot up because of the sand being stired so if you have time, which you should with the heaters and power heads, i would set your bottom rock and add some water then drain again. try to get all that crap that gets stired up.

just a thought. im going to try that with the one i move this weekend. my pho4 went from .1 to .6 after the move. i didnt use heaters or powerheads either.

 

[arminkropp]

I guess I shoulda mentioned that I'd leave enough water to cover the sand.
We get the house Friday at 4:00pm. I told my wife already that at 4:01 I'll be mixing a 10Gal batch of new SW to have it ready for the following night when I move the tank. Hmmmm thinking I might make it 20Gal. batch.......

Thanx for the input.

 

[tecwzrd]

For the short 10 minute drive I wouldn’t worry about ph/heater. The moving action of the car will be enough for aeration and the heat shouldn’t drop at all in that amount of time. I would use a round container for transporting the fish since they splash less then long containers when stopping/starting. I’ve moved fish a couple of times this way short distances and if you keep the container covered with a hole in the center cut out (about 1/3rd of the lid) then it keeps water in and still provides oxygen.

And I would have 20 gal of premixed SW for any spillage and just to do a PWC at the same time.

Sounds like you have it covered, best of luck