Moving Fish On Monday... Outline and Question

[noteworthy]

I'm moving 340 miles south next Monday and need to overview what I have done to prep.

5 - 32 gallon trash cans available.
2 - styrofoam minnow buckets with battery powered aerator
1 - styrofoam rectangular box - gonna use for snails and coral


This is for my 125 gallon reef I'm moving.

I'm going to throw away the 200 lbs of Quikrete All Purpose Sand (having a lot of algae problems). I have 60 lbs of caribisea aragonite sitting by the aquarium waiting for the move. After I get it all setup I'm going to buy some araga-live sand the next day to help minimize a cycle. Fill two buckets about 25-30 gallons full of water and my 100 lbs of live rock. The other three buckets I was thinking of using fresh rodi water I can mix before moving.

I will be putting a few rock pieces with shrooms in the rectangular styrofoam with tank water, and my 75 snails. For the buckets I was going to seperate as the following. Yellow Tang, Sixline Wrasse, and Maroon Clown in one bucket. Three gobies and Skunk Cleaner Shrimp in the other bucket. When I get there I'm not sure if I need to acclimate them by dripping or not. Almost half the water will be the old tank water.



For my 55 gallon freshwater I have.
2 - styrofoam minnow buckets w/ battery powered aerator

I will put my 8" pleco in one bucket. One adult and two baby fantail goldfish in other bucket.

Gravel will go in a cleaned kitty litter plastic tote with filter pads. soaked.


The fish for the 55 gallon fresh will have to be acclimated because none of their water will be saved.


What do you guys think of my plan?

Update...
I have six trash cans now.. so three for tank water.. three for fresh rodi saltwater? Do I need to acclimate the fish since half the water will be their old tank water.

 

[ntswift]

I would think so. You are still going to need to acclimate them to the temperature and to the new salinity in the water. Looks like you have your planning down though! Good Luck with the trip!

 

[noteworthy]

Hrmmm The water should be close. I'm curious if I really need 6 trash cans.


I show the volume of water minus sand depth to be 83 gallons in my 125 gallon tank. Plus I have 10 gallons under in my sump usually.


After putting 1.5 gallons in each bucket and 3 gallons in my big rectangular cooler for shrooms and snails..

That leaves me about 87 gallons or so... divided by three tubs... gives me 29 gallons per trash can.

Should I go ahead and make two buckets of ro/di and not worry about a third? Instead of a 4 inch sand bed it will be 1 inch... so that will need more water. about 16 more gallons by my calculations. But it is safe to have two buckets instead of just one of fresh water... eh. or I could just pull about 58 gallons of the old water in the tank and make new water in three buckets. Using only two probably to fill it up. I'm confused.


Would it be beneficial to do a 40% water change of 40-50 gallons, or just do something like a 20% with suppliment of 20-30 gallons

 

[noteworthy]

Well just an Update


I have finished moving stuff, but I am far from unpacking everything. My wifes fish are all doing well. We bought a piece of driftwood for her pleco and it is absolutely loving it.

My tank is going well... tank water is crystal clear. but I did have one concern. During the trip my tank water in the trash cans easily got over 100F temp with my LR in it. I'm not sure how 'alive' the rock is anymore. I did take my smaller coral pieces and put them in a cooler.. those are doing great. I did notice some white fading on a couple of the LR pieces that were covered in coraline.

All in all it was a very effective method of transporting fish. The fish were taken out of the tank at 6 am... tank was broken down from then on.. I finally got the tank off the stand and empty at 9 am. washed it out with a garden hose to clean stuff out. Moved it and the stand into the moving truck... a monster 24' bed. (I had that truck floored the whole way... heh. Governer cut it off at 70 so it didn't matter. Also it would slow down to 50 going up those big hills.

Anyway the fish were out of the tank at 6 am.. put in their coolers with pumps. Got to the new house at 4:30 pm after signing papers. Setup the tanks and finished getting them 'running' by 8:00pm. My water was still hot from the buckets so I let it sit and added my wifes fish to her tank. At 12:00 am I added my fish because I felt the water temp was low enough it would not harm the fish. So my fish were in the tank by 1:30 am. Very healthy.. in a bucket for about 19 1/2 hours.

My tang nearly scared me to death... when I netted him and my sixline into the bucket they both laid on their side for about 30 seconds... then proceeded to swim around normal. After adding the fish the tang went back and forth.. the full 6 foot of the tank.. I think he was in heaven.

 

[Bearfan]

Congrats on the success! I know what a pain moving tanks are, I did it about the same distance north a few years back.