moving homes

[dozer]

Hello..does anybody have advice about moving aquariums? I have 40 g and a 29 g....the 40 g has an assortment of barbs and the 29g has guppies and neons. The tanks will be too heavy with any water in them, so don't know if the fish will be ok in a bucket for an hour or so...I also have 1 10 gallon tank I was thinking I could set up and move 1 tank at a time....trying to do this without losing to many of my fish. Does anyone have any experience they'd like to pass along?

 

[mgamer20o0]

never move a tank with water in it. i would get rubber maid tubs or 5 gallon buckets. keep the substrate wet along with the media. you could do it one at time time thats fine you could also do it at the same time. can you test to new water see if there is any different in ph and hardness? if there is i would drip new water into the buckets to match the water of the new place. then match the temp as if it was a new fish and release them back into the tank.

a good thing is gravel vac a few times right before get as much of the dirt out as possible.

 

[shawnryan1977]

I moved 5 tanks about 2 years ago so it is not something I want to do anytime soon again. If you have buckets you can put the fish in add an air pump to the buckets so that they can be in there longer. If the temperature is fairly warm you shouldn’t have to worry about them freezing or you can put your heaters in the buckets. Make sure to have a bucket to put all your filter material in. I took all of the gravel out of my larger tanks to make moving easier but the smaller ones I just left it in. I had 3 weeks to move all my tanks so I just moved 1 or 2 tanks at a time. I didn't lose one fish and I was able to redo a couple of tanks since they were empty.

 

[kangster]

this is one of the reasons why i am not getting a bigger tank because i might be moving in a year
i have a 10 gallon tank which will be a breeze to move but i really want to get that 36 gallon bow front tank

 

[atomiclord]

Pick up a battery powered air pump from a fishing store. They're used for live-bait wells but I keep one on hand in case of power failure.