Second hand tank questions....

[Sands_88]

I am just about to go and possibly buy a larger tank which is being sold as a complete set up by an old lady who can't with it anymore.

Luckily the fish she has in it already (neons, clown loaches cories and a few others) are exactly what I'm after, and if there's enough space, I will add my glowlights and cories)

The main things I need to know are:
Are there specific things I need to look out for when I go and look at the tank? I'm going to assume it is watertight as it has fish in - but are there any tell tale signs if they've just topped the water up before I get there?

What is the easiest way of taking it all apart and transporting it? Take fish out, bag them, then take tank off, take apart stand and put in car? I'm a little worried my sister and I won't be able to carry the tank - how heavy is a 3.5ft tank? How long can the fish last in bags? I don't want them to die while we're faffing about trying to fit the stand in the car!

The other thing that concerns me is that the lady says that currently there is a lot of hair algae. A bit of research and this appears to be very difficult to get rid of! I'm assuming that the 100% water change ;m going to have to do will help, and I will manually take off what I can, but are there any other ideas?

I'll be saving a good £400 quid I reckon on this tank as it has absolutely everything including fish - but I don't particularly want to
a) kill all the fish transporting them or
b) have a new to me tank that has hair algae forever...!

Thanks everyone! Sorry for all the millions of questions!!

 

[Mattfinn]

You can ask your lfs for bags to either bag fish and transport them that way. They should be fine for a while like this. Or you can buy a small garbage bin put fish and heater and bio media. It's important to keep your bio media wet otherwise you will kill the bacteria you need to chew up the ammonia.
Not sure on how heavy the tank will be but yeah you may need a hand moving it. Take the stand apart. Use blankets to wrap around the tank so you don't chip or scratch the tank.

 

[CoronaBlue]

I've purchased 3 tanks from craigslist all have had fish. I used 5 gallon buckets to transport the fish. I covered top with plastic (punched holes in top to allow oxygen but kept water from spilling out). Take all decor out place in garbage sack, leave substrate in the tank. Drain all the water out (scrub the tank while your draining it). Tank shouldn't be too heavy, bring a blanket to cover tank while transporting. I used blanket to cover glass so stand didn't scratch it during transit. Before I set my tanks back up and would scrub it down again using warm water only to clean glass and any hard water stains. Drain water again then set up tank. I would leave filters as is for a few days even if they are dirty. It will kick start the cycle since you will be doing a 100% WC.

 

[wildroseofky]

The hair algae can be defeated. I had an outbreak recently when I forgot to change out my DIY CO2 for several weeks. Clean off what you can each day. Cut lights back to around 6 hours. Make sure you have good water movement in the tank. The hair algae in my tank was mostly in low flow areas. Increasing the water movement helped a lot. Do not overfeed the fish. Excess food seems to make it worse. You can treat thick areas with a hydrogen peroxide treatment. Buy 3% hydrogen peroxide from the pharmacy or other store. Get a medicine syringe while your there. Pull up 3 cc of preoxide, turn off the filters, and slowly squirt the peroxide over the algae. Let sit for about 15 minutes and then turn the filters back on. In your size tank you should be okay doing 3-4 spot treatments in one day. It takes time but it will go away. I have been working on it for around three weeks and have finally got it down to just a few spots in my moss.

 

[Sands_88]

Thank you so much everyone! Managed to fit it all in my nissan micra and all went well! A couple of casulaties in the bag with some cories....cories were fine but 3 assorted fish died in that bag - did my cories kill them!?

I might take some photos of the tank as it it now and keep people updated - its a right mess!

Im just trying to source some spare taps for the filter - its external and taps are leaking everywhere!

Unfortunately I had to clean the filer - the thing was so clogged with algae that the motor wouldn't run!

 

[CoronaBlue]

Doubt Cories killed anyone. They are very peaceful fish. Could of just been from stress.

 

[Sands_88]

Doubt Cories killed anyone. They are very peaceful fish. Could of just been from stress.

I know I have them in my other tank - Its just weird that every other fish (around 30 in total - it is very overstocked and I'm rehoming many of them!) in various different bags and buckets travelled fine, and the 3 in with the cories were all dead as doornails!