Moving House

[Nick & Anne]

Hi,

We are going to be moving at the end of the week and have hired a uhaul truck for the five & a half hour trip North ( we live in Alberta)

We have bought a brand new large garbage bin from Walmart and were thinking of putting the fish in a plastic bag with water from the tank within this bin.

We have about twenty small fish, mostly tetra's, nothing above 2 inches.

Can anyone offer any further advice as to what else if anything we should be doing? We are new to the hobby having only had the tank a year and have never moved any fish before. We have read so many different post on the forum about moving fish but all with varying circumstances that it began to confuse us, so we thought we would ask a specific question relating to our move and hope that no-one minded answering again.

Thank you so much in advance!

Nick & Anne

 

[theotheragentm]

You might want to get some oxygen tabs, but other than that you shouldn't worry. I drove some fish from Phoenix, AZ to Los Angeles, CA (6 hours) and they don't need much. The fish are probably shipped in much poorer conditions to the fish store to begin with, so you taking a little extra care won't be anything they haven't encountered before.

 

[Zagz]

What I would do is not use the bags for the fish and just put the fish and some water from the tank into the rubbermaid container. Run airstones until the last minute possible or get a battery run airstone. Keep your filter media wet and your substrate wet to help prevent losing all the beneficial bacteria. Don't feed the fish the day before moving. Keep the lid on the container while moving the fish and they should be fine.

 

[Reefmonkey]

I have a 55 gallon tank with 6 large Africans that I moved last summer without cycling the tank before putting the fish in. On the same day, I took the fish out, broke the tank down, moved it, set it back up, and put the fish in. Though I would have liked to have done things differently (holding tank until the main tank set up and reestablished itself), circumstances I won't get into for the sake of brevity did not allow it. What I will let you know is that a year later, all the fish are doing fine. In fact, I never observed a serious spike in any water parameters, saw no signs of stress in the fish. I thought I would share my experience and what I thought I did right for anyone who may be moving soon.

1. I remembered the adage that it is big changes in water quality that affect fish, and that it is better to leave a fish that has been used to dirty water in dirty water that suddenly put it in clean water. Therefore, I wanted to make sure my fish had become used to very clean water practically straight from the tap (w dechlor, of course), so during the week before the move, I did a 40% water change every day.

2. For transporting the fish, I went to the LFS and begged a big, heavy bag for each fish. Then, after bagging the fish (no O2 so I had to quickly grab it at the top and capture as much air as possible) I put them in a wine box (with dividers) I begged from the local liquor store, so each one had its own little space, couldn't see the other fish, and was in the dark.

3. When I emptied the aquarium, I kept the gravel just slightly submerged in the old water.

4. I swear by canister filters, and I have mine set up with two valves on both the incoming and outgoing hose. So I unplugged the filter, flipped all the valves, and moved the filter, water and all.

5. As soon as I physically set up the tank, I put the fish bags in it and then started filling it, and let them float for an additional 15 minutes once the tank was full.

6. By then, they had been in those bags 2+ hours, so I opened each bag and netted the fish out immediately, rather than the usual trickle method, based on recommendations I had gotten from companies that regularly ship live tropical fish.

7. Lights off, a blanket over the tank until the next morning, and didn't turn the lights on until the next afternoon.

I was pretty pleased to be able to move 6 very large, valuable cichlids that I had raised from little things, and move them very quickly without all the precautions I would have liked to take, with temps in the mid 90s, and not lose a single fish. I think it was partly luck, but I believe the measures I took above did a lot to minimize the stress (for the fish or me - I feel sorry for guys who have to move reef tanks quickly).

 

[Nick & Anne]

Thank you very much for your replies, I have been to the lfs and bought some oxygen tablets. Hopefully all will go well.

Thanks Again
Nick & Anne

 

[Nick & Anne]

Hi,

Just to update you all, the fish were all moved successfully, no casualties, just used the oxygen tablets and the rubbermaid tub and all was fine, thanks again.

Nick & Anne

 

[rich311k]

Glad you and the fish arrived safely in your new home.