moving my 55gal tank - what else should I know?

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hbeth82

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Aug 17, 2009
Messages
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Location
SW Ohio
In a few weeks, I'll be moving about 2.5 hours away and so far my main concerns are getting the fish down there safely. The tank is loosly planted (bunches of anachris, cambomba, anubias nana, & pitiful amazon sword plants) community tank. I have:

4 bolivian rams
6 assorted cory cats
6 black skirt tetras
1 bn pleco
1 platy
1 dwarf gourami

From what I can find online, it looks like the suggested course of action would be to (1) catch the fish and distribute them into several buckets of tank-water, (2) leave the plants, gravel, and a little bit of water in the tank, (3) re-locate and set-up the new tank, filling with as much of the old water as possible (4) acclimate fish with fingers crossed. Grand total, they'll probably be in the buckets for 4-5 hours, though I hope to make it less as the tank will be the last think I pack. I've also noticed a few more red worms in the gravel so I'm thinking about getting new gravel and having that rinsed & ready before the move.

However, I might have several other options. My boyfriend has an under-stocked 50gal tank with sufficient filtration so I could move my fish into his tank, then haul my tank down & get it set up, then move my fish from his tank down to their new home. The only thing I don't like about that is having to catch and relocate the fish twice, but if it's easier on them in the long run it'll work out.

The other option is that since I'm moving some stuff down this coming weekend, I take a few of the fish down with a 10gal aquarium and the smaller of my two filters, so that way there's few fish to worry about and the filter that's down there should have recovered any lost bacteria in the mean time.

Any thoughts on what might be easiest for me and the fish?
 
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Tanks are not made to be moved with stuff in the. You will want to remove the gravel and all water from the tank. Keep your filter media wet. If you put the fish in a cooler they will stay warmer. It is a good idea to move the tank before or after the move so you can concentrate on moving the tank.
 
Rich has a couple of great points, especially regarding your filter media. There would be nothing worse than moving your tank only to find out you killed the bactiera, resulting in recycling your tank...cause after a move daily water changes would suck. I have always moved my tanks last, as in the last things in the house, where I can really concentrate and put all effort to make the transition as smooth as possible.
 
I agree with everything said above and a stryfoam cooler is a great way to transport the fish. Keeps the water at temp better and is dark.
 
Thanks for the feedback. So you guys think it would be better to take all fish and aquarium paraphernalia at the same time, rather than taking a few fish in a smaller tank this weekend or moving the fish to my boyfriend's tank and setting up the aquarium and then move the fish down?
 
I certainly think it helps doing it all at once, thankfully I've had to do one time. I think the less times the fish are netted and returned the less stress they will endure. But I used coolers with tank water and battery operated air pumps to store the fish during the tank break down and transport. I only have canister filters and alot of sponge filters, so I never emptied the canisters and put the sponge filters in the cooler being operated by the air pumps. The tanks were moved and reassembled with filters and such at the new house with a 100% water change. Fish were transplanted with no casualties and very little stress. It took a entire day to swap all my tanks to the new location, it's alot of work so I'm glad it's not in my near future. Good luck!
 
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