Moving?

[elysekuf]

Hey folks! It's been a while since I've been around! Our tank is going great, a school of 12-15 (I can never count fast enough!) cardinals, 3 false julii corys and recently, one angelfish and a ton of plants whose names I can't remember which are doing really well under a lamp whose specs I also don't recall off the top of my head. Running two AquaClear Filters, one 110G and one 30G.

We had a mini-cycle a few months back in which we lost 4 of our 7 at the time corys, but we've since recovered.

Anyhow, we're moving fifteen minutes up the road at the end of the month and we're wondering the best way to go about this?

We do have additional currently empty 10g and 20g tanks that I was thinking we might be able to use as staging? I just don't know what the best way to go about this with minimal stress and shock is.

Additionally, we've been wanting to replace our gravel substrate with sand for our corys, and were thinking that moving is a good time to do this. Thoughts? Also, what sand do you think is the best, while we're at it?

 

[New]

i'm also moving (in 6 days) "luckily" my biggest tank is 10 gallons so i'm just going to empty them half way and drive them to the new house. As for a big tank i would put the fish in either bags or styrofoam cubes, drain the tank and bring it over. make sure to keep filter media and plants wet to keep BB alive. And i would definitely take advantage of this time if you want to switch the substrate, pfs is the sand i see mentioned on this site the most, i hope i helped

 

[elysekuf]

That's basically what we were thinking. We have a couple 5gallon buckets we were going to do that in. How soon should we start moving them into the tank, etc.?

I was kind of thinking of setting up our 20 gallon in the new place before we start moving in a location that won't be disturbed much with the aquaclear 30 and our spare heater and let it stabilize while we move stuff and get the fish in there while we set up the big tank and wait for it to stabilize and then move them over. Is that overly complicated?

I'm trying to weigh the stress level from being in an unfiltered bucket versus from multiple tank moves and the time it takes to wait for temps to stabilize to decide which is the best course of action

 

[New]

hm, i'd def keep them in stable temps and filtered, just make sure u acclimize them properly each time u move them

 

[CleverBs]

honestly i would set up your 20 gallon, put your filter on it and take the substrate you currently have in your big tank and put some of it in the 20 gallon that way all the BB will still be there and just make sure you have the same water temp as your large tank and the fish should be rather happy. I would say that the fish would be fine in there for a bit at least long enough for you to get your large tank reset up and the new sand substrate back in it.

 

[Homer8]

never move a tank with water in it. they will crack and you will cry. switching to sand now would be a bad idea. the fish are already going to be stressed due to the move plus the gravel has a lot of the bacteria in that youll be removing. when i moved my 38 gallon i took out most the water. i left just enough to cover the gravel i had in the tank. i bought a few 5 gallon homer paint buckets and transferred some of the water and fish in those.

 

[elysekuf]

Alright so our move is imminent. The results here are 50/50 split on whether it's safe to change substrate at this point. Based on other things I've read around here, I tend to think that it is safe since most of the bacteria will be in the filter. Is this a good or bad assumption? We're trying to decide whether to buy the sand tomorrow or not.

 

[New]

i just moved last week, everything went well for me, i hope the same for you. its a good assumption that most of the bb is on filter media, make sure you keep it wet to keep the bb alive.