55 gallon tank, getting new floors

[fishliker]

Hi All,

Boy do I need help. We are taking the plunge, getting flooring throughout house except bedrooms. Here is what we think we need to do, please advise. It will take 2 days to install floors.

Empty tank, keep water, put fish and water in buckets, keep sand too somewhere. Float plants. Move tank to sun porch. Need advice here. ? Use a dolly, rented to move tank. Put tank back on stand and refill it and put fish back. Repeat this process after floors are done. Of course keep filters wet.

Need best advice to protect tank and fish the best we can. Thank you!




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[Brookster123]

What kind of fish in tank?

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[fishliker]

Freshwater, long. Has mostly pearl gourami and Cardinal tetras.planted, with 3 pieces of driftwood.


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[ScotJudd]

Given that the tank will have to be relocated and then moved back 2 or 3 days later (these jobs do over-run sometimes), I would not move the tank, reset it up and then repeat the process. The fish will have effectively 4 moves ( tank to buckets, buckets to tank, tank to buckets and finally buckets to tank).
An alternative would be to purchase a very large plastic container, 10-20 gallons, and move all the fish and plant and filters over to the plastic 'tank'. This could be done a couple of days before the works starts. Run the temp home as you would a tank. Then when the tank is back in place after the flooring is done you can rebuild it in slow time finally adding the fish when the tank is settled and clear.
I wouldn't stress out on keeping all of the water, the beneficial bacteria is mostly in the filters anyway, but when you add the fish you should acclimatise them as if you had just brought them home from the LFS.
Good luck with this project. I bought my present 55gallon from a guy 2 hrs drive from here. The tank had to be broken down, fish and plants bagged. Substrate bagged. Filters kept wet. Everything including the cabinet had to be loaded into my vehicle as I was only making one journey. Then had to rebuild it the same day. It took 12 hours. Lost one fish. Exhausting but rewarding.




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[Canadiver]

When we did our floors, I drained my 80 gal down about 75%, left the tank on the stand, had some friends come by and lend a hand. We moved it out on the back patio, refilled with water. 3 days later repeated the same process. Fish, plants and filter never noticed the difference. Other then a massive water change over a few days everything came through without an issue.

Just make sure if anything in the tank can fall over on the fish, remove before moving. Keep at least four inches of water above the sand or gravel for the fish to swim in. You be surprised how easy it is to move when most of the water is out. This way is the least stressful for everyone involved.

Good luck
Canadiver


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[fishyb]

I to had to move a 55 gallon with sand. This is exactly what I did. I bought some 5 gallon bucks from walmart. Filled them with tank water. Drained the tank. Moved said tank out of the way. (We he-manned that heavy SOB) put the flooring in where the tank was. Reset up tank. Then finished flooring. Time in bucket. 2 hours.

 

[Mebbid]

They sell 50g rubbermaid totes. Put it where you like, fill with water, add the filter and heater, add fish and plants. You can keep the sand in buckets or put it in the tote your choice.

Then you can move the tank out of the way and just get it done. It will cut you down to moving everything twice.

 

[fishliker]

Thanks to everyone who answered here! Really good info. We are older and this seems a daunting task!


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[aseradyn]

I moved my tank this spring for the same reason - all the floors were being replaced at the same time, except for a little bathroom.

IMO, it's worth doing a little math to figure out whether to empty the tank completely or not. Weight of the glass + sand + remaining water + stand/base divided by the number of people doing the lifting. Consider the distance it will have to be moved, the strength of the people involved, and whether there are stairs or awkward corners involved. I think I'd empty it, but then, everyone I can rope into these projects has back problems, so we're all big babies about moving heavy things

When I moved mine, all the fish went into a 5 gallon bucket in the bathroom for about 7 days. I keep my tank lightly stocked, so it was maybe a dozen corys, 4 swordtails, and 5 giant danios. I set up a cheap internal filter, dosed the bucket with Amquel, and threw in a couple of anubias to float on top. I did not feed them, and did one water change about half-way through. Everyone came out fine on the other side. Note, though, that I have no delicate fish; these were all fish that had been putting up with my half-a-d fishkeeping for years, and most were born in my tank. You may want to provide a little more attention.

I put the plants, wood, and gravel in buckets, covered with water, out on the porch. I should have kept the plants inside, I think. When I reassembled the tank, all the anubias leaves rotted away. They looked very peculiar for a while until they started growing new leaves. (I didn't have anything except various types of anubias and algae in the tank at the time)

I kept the gravel under about an inch of tank water to help keep the bacteria going, but I did take the opportunity to give the filter a really good scrubbing. I had a big algae bloom when I set everything up again, but the fish never seemed stressed after the first few hours after re-introduction. The snails mostly vanished, though; it's been 7 months, and I'm just now starting to see the population rebound.

Good luck with your move!

 

[fishliker]

Canadiver had the right idea. Thought I would tell what happened. It went great. 3 guys who do this for a living came and did the following with each of the 4 tanks: They brought in a couple of big barrels and a nice big pump and a hose, pumped out all but about 3 inches of water. Left all fish, plants, everything in the tank. ( the 55 gallon was first). Got tank on a blanket and slid it over to the step down to the sun porch and lowered it down to a dolly and placed it on the floor. Then they pumped all the water back in and were done with that tank. Smooth operation! Same for the other tanks.

A really sweet side benefit here was that once we got the tanks out there we said, wow! We like the tanks out here and so now they are all out on the sun porch where they look pretty and we have the sofa back where it used to be.



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[PB_Smith]

Glad it went well. Personally I wouldn't move a glass tank with water/sand in it. All it takes is a quick jerking movement, such as when first lifting it, to crack the glass under weight. Seen it happen more than once, plus I still enjoy back pain 24/7 for last 23 years from moving a large glass tank.
I have done it with acrylic tanks, but it still makes me nervous.


You need to be sure algae won't be a major problem in the new location, I assume it will be getting more sunlight, before you completely commit to it, otherwise you may be moving them again in a few months.

 

[bescher]

Hi all:
I thought I got rid of snails in my two year old 40 gal. But I cleaned a filter Aquatop 400 and found a few hundred in it small things. I even had assassins snails in the tank and I have broken shells all over the place as well. I plan on cleaning the tank and changing the substrate. I won't change the filters ( two of the aquatop 400's a sponge filter and two moving bed filters. I plan on keeping 20% of the water (I'm also dealing with ammonia) rocks, wood ( which I will boil) and two imitation rock caves. Should I change only half the substrate at one time or just do it all? I have electric blue acaras, bristle nose plecos, and corycats and a shrimp or two

Thanks


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