Moving suggestions

[Guest hound66]

I'm moving next weekend, the 30th and 1st and need to move a 29 gallon with a refug and 2 14 gallon biocubes. Its only about a 30 mile move and I think the biocubes will be pretty easy. Any suggestions on how to move the 29 gallon with the least hassle?

Thanks

[stevil]

What's in it? Details on equipment, livestock, sand, rock etc... would help.

[Brian Ward]

the sand will tend to be your biggest problem. it's too heavy to leave in the tank, but if you take it out you'll need to clean it before you put it back in to eliminate the harmful chemicals that tend to be trapped in sandbeds. Keep about 1/2 the water, put in new water for the rest of it. Lots of buckets, keep the live rock wet in the buckets, drop in the corals and fish. depending on temperature, a heater and small pump in each bucket wouldn't be a bad idea - use a power inverter plugged into the car. it's not really all that hard, just a lot of work. I would plan a whole day for moving the 3 tanks.

[Reefn]

Moving is not such a big deal. I bought and moved an up and running complete system - 110 with fish, sand, rock, fuge. Moved it from Fredricksburg to Centreville (about 45 mi) - it went even better than I expected. No supplementary pumps or anything in transit. Didn't lose a single fish.

 

Went to Home Depot and 25 5gal buckets & tops and a heavy plastic tarp. I bought a few more buckets than I thought I needed for saftey margin. Turned out to be a good thing as I forgot about the fuge volume.

I also took a bunch of beach towels and several hand towels. The 5 gal buckets even with rocks or sand and filled with water, though heavy is a managable weight.

 

Took all the rock out first and put it in buckets so I could get to the fish easier

Captured as many snails and hermits as I could find in the rock step - they went into a separate bucket,

Siphoned water into the rock & snail buckets

Siphoned about half of the tank water into other buckets

Captured the fish and put them in the water only buckets (large fish went in separate buckets by themselves)

Pumped air thorugh air stones in the fish buckets while I continued to work

Siphoned out the rest of the water into other buckets until each was aboaut half full

Siphoned & scooped out the sand into partial water buckets

Siphoned most of water from the fuge into another bucket and labled it (I left all the fuge sand in place & as undisturbed as possible) and added the macroalgae to the fuge water bucket.

 

Put lids on everything, loaded it all up and trucked to my home - took extra hands to move the tank & fuge on both ends, but otherise it was a pretty fast one man job.

Reversed the process at home and everything was fine. Emptying and loading on the front end took about an hour and a half. Setting up took about 5 hours since I cleaned everything I could at my house.

 

Worked like a charm - if you use the fuge return pump to pump out the tank it will go faster - otherwise get some larger diamet hose to speed the siphoning.

 

Fish get shipped all over the country in very little water and do remarkably well - I wouldn't wory about supplemental pumps for them. Temperature is likely to be your only concern. Just Keep the fish buckets protected from extreme temperature.

 

If you were closer, I'd offer my buckets and tarp for your use. I keep it around - turned out to be usefull when I purchased all tank contents from a WAMAS member that was breaking down. Took his water, sand, rocks and moved it all with the 5gal bucket system and added a hand truck. It went absolutely smoothly.

 

Best of luck,

Keith

[davelin315]

Mix your water at your destination before you do the move if possible. I am a veteran of multiple tank moves in a single day and with what you are describing, you'll need a bucket for each of the smaller tanks to store the rock and livestock so that you can submerse it (forego the heater and pump, just seal it up tight and leave some air in the bucket so that the water can slosh around, for the livestock leave it only half full) and for the 29 if it's average stocking you'll need probably 2-3 buckets for the rock and livestock. If you have water pre-mixed at your destination, then all you will need to take with you is enough water to cover the rock and the livestock. Drain this into the buckets after you have removed what you want to remove from each tank and then stir up the sand and drain off the detritus. I disagree with having to remove the sand from the 29, you can move it with it in there as long as you don't leave any water. Every year I spend a couple of days moving anywhere from 4-8 tanks from school and setting them up in different locations. I would say that not counting the commute, if I have pre-mixed water ready to go that I don't have to transport, I could do the move in about 2 hours total for your 3 tanks, so I would give yourself a little bit more time to do yours, maybe 3 hours plus commute. Really, the smaller tanks will be a breeze and the larger tank is just more to move, that's all.

[txaggies07]

29g is easy. I moved my 46g from Texas to VA not too long ago. You can keep your sand in your tank. It won't be that heavy unless you aren't very strong.

 

Keep a bunch of water in jugs and whatnot. Have everything else mixed. Be careful not to stir up your sand too much. Put the rocks in buckets of tank water. I used gladware to move small fish and bigger rubbermaid stuff for the bigger fish. Enjoy and good luck.

[Guest hound66]

Thank you everybody for all of the suggestions. I pretty much took them all and used bits and pieces of each. For the 14 g biocubes, I drained about half of the water and moved any of the corals that were up high down to the bottom and made sure nothing would fall on them. Then when I arrived at the new house, I topped off with freshly made water. For the 29g, I put all of the rock in 5 gal buckets and filled them with enough water to cover them. Put the fish in baggies that I acquired from a LFS and put in a cooler. Then drained to about 1" above the sand. When I got to the new place, I syphoned off the rest of the water and any detritus that was there. Then added enough water to the tank to start putting rock in. Then added more water, doing about a 50% water change. All I have to do now is re-arrange everybody so they look nice and are happy again.

[steveoutlaw]

Glad to hear it went well.