Best Way to Transport

[discretekarma]

I'll be bringing my tank home on Sunday. I wanted to see what the best way to do it would be. It's the tank, stand, canopy. At least 100 lbs of live rock. Several fish, several corals, and some inverts. And then a ton of equipment. There's an Oceans Motions 4 way that's run by a Dart. There's a wavy seas that has an Eheim that returns the water from the sump, a skimmer, lights, an RO/DI, and a bunch of misc power heads and other random things.

 

How should I get all that water, rocks, sand, and fish over? How much water should I keep? I believe my dad had all the perameters out of whack so I'm nervous about making new water and killing things since there used to whatever they're in. Or does that not make sense. It seems like I have to do it all fairly quick as to not kill everything. I don't think I'll have time to make a bunch of trips. What would be the best plan?

 

Thanks

[Mountaineer]

I would get a truck and large containers (rubber maid, trash cans, etc). Put the containers in the truck and pump water from the tank to the containers to drain the tank. Put all of the live rock in one container of water, fish only in one, and consider bagging coral or keeping them so they don't bang around. Completely empty the tank and keep as much water as you can.

 

Break down the tank and reset it up at your new place, pump the water back in, replace the rock, and live stock. Watch closely for signs of a re-cycle with an ammonia spike and be ready to go into action should you need to.

 

Have enough water mixed and ready to do big water changes at the new place.

 

How far are you moving?

[discretekarma]

Potomac to Silver Spring. 10ish miles down montrose/randolph basically.

[discretekarma]

I have a 150 gallon rubbermaid container. Should I put it in the back of my Escape (if it fits) and put all the rocks and pump the water in to it? Could I put fish in buckets and/or tubs with just water and move them seperately? My dad mentioned something about cleaning sand out of the OM4 before starting it up. What is that all about?

[magnetic1]

Watch your weight... all that stuff adds up. You dont wanna break your car Each gallon of water is like 8lbs.

 

Pickup truck might be best if water is going to be sloshing all around.

[Mountaineer]

Watch your weight... all that stuff adds up. You dont wanna break your car Each gallon of water is like 8lbs.

 

Pickup truck might be best if water is going to be sloshing all around.

 

 

A truck would be best. I've used a U-haul type truck many times to do this if that's something you can consider.

[magnetic1]

Forgot about UHaul... they rent pickup trucks for $19.95 + mileage. Those would certainly have enough payload capacity for all your stuff. You dont wanna be this guy driving through Potomac, lol

 

[davelin315]

I would ditch all of the water and possibly the sand and just start with all new water. I do this every year when tanks are reclaimed from summer vacation. I think that the issue of water that is too clean comes not from the water itself, but the way the light penetrates afterwards so just scale back the lights and slowly acclimate to the photoperiod you're looking for. Other than that, acclimate as you normally would when bringing home new specimens. Corals, just let them slime up and then add them, rock, just make sure it's clean and stick it in the tank (use old tank water to clean it before you take it and just throw wet newspaper over it in styros for the trip since it's quick), fish, acclimate them as you normally would (typically I just toss them in once they are temperature acclimated unless they're sensitive fish and then I drip acclimate), inverts, drip acclimate so that you don't shock them. The biggest concern for me would be pH differences for the fish and inverts, so if that doesn't match up well, then I would acclimate the fish, too.

[Origami]

I would probably dump most of the water. Keep just what you need for your livestock. It's not worth the effort to haul it. But, likewise, I would have water mixed up, heated and aged a couple of days ready at the new place. I could go either way with the sand - give it a good rinse and you can probably reuse it. Transport the rock and livestock in separate 5 gallon buckets if you're able and can afford going to HD or Lowe's and buying a bunch of them. It makes it a lot easier to carry from the vehicle to the house. You can also use a large trash can but you'd probably still benefit from having some 5 gallon buckets on hand to move stuff back and forth. Move the livestock out of the house last, and move it into the destination house first - do this to minimize cooling. Be ready to put your heaters to work in the buckets at the destination; aerate if you feel it's necessary.

 

Good luck with the move.

[discretekarma]

Here's where I'm at so far. Based on Davelin and Origami's recommendation, I will making new water. I went to my parent's house today and picked up the RO/DI and some other things. I saw that there are several things still living in there. Some good and some bad. I also checked the salinity which was at 1.018. The temp was at 79 and the PH was the shocking part. It's at 4.17. How could anything live in there. There is an RBTA that almost completely white with a few spots with a pinkish color and there is also some corals (GSP, frogspawn, and some polyps that I saw). There's a Royal Gramma, Pink and Blue Goby, Pajama Cardinal, and a Clown. The RBTA wasn't moving which worried me. I had an RBDA die once and it turned in to muck and algae or something which makes me think this RBTA might be holding on but I really have no idea. The rocks are completly covered in algae. Some stringy green and some brown slime. Some of the corals that are there are on the rocks and not on plugs.

 

Should I still move all that mess in to the new tank or should I come up with a new plan. I'd rather not lose the corals that are there which is why I'm shying away from cooking the rocks. What should I do?

 

If I am going to be using the rocks without cooking them, should I bring them over tomorrow and put them in the tubs of water that I'll be making tonight? That would be a little less to do on Sunday.

Edited December 11, 2009 by discretekarma

[Origami]

It's at 4.17. How could anything live in there.

 

Should I still move all that mess in to the new tank or should I come up with a new plan. I'd rather not lose the corals that are there which is why I'm shying away from cooking the rocks. What should I do?

 

If I am going to be using the rocks without cooking them, should I bring them over tomorrow and put them in the tubs of water that I'll be making tonight? That would be a little less to do on Sunday.

 

Your pH test kit is way off. Both your aragonite sand and rock would be completely dissolved at 4.17 as it begins to dissolve in seawater somewhere between pH 7.4-7.6 or so. Hard corals and shelled creatures would be dissolved as well.

 

If you're able, you can scrub the rock to remove unwanted growth. Rinse it well in the old tank water (you may as well get some use out of it before tossing it) if you can. As long as you keep your new tank clean and run a low nutrient system, the continued growth of this stuff will subside. You want to remove what you can now, though, just so it doesn't pollute your water when it begins to die back. A good clean up crew would be a good thing to add at the start.

 

I would wait for the water to age at least 24 hours (if aerated) before moving anything into it, including the rock. Freshly mixed salt water is actually pretty caustic. Give it time to absorb some CO2 from the air so it equalizes. If you've got a power head and can keep the surface of the new water moving, that will help greatly in this regard.

[davelin315]

Tom's right, the pH is not where you think it is. If that's off a monitor, then you need to recalibrate. Just get the water mixed and let it run for a day to get balanced. Run some carbon on the water once you add the rock and livestock to account for detritus you didn't get off the first time and make sure that you really give it a good scrub. If the corals are that bleached I'd only turn the lights on for an hour or so at first and make sure it's filtered. Slowly increase this by about 15-30 minutes per day and then at the last step start to remove the screens. It's akin to adding carbon to the water and cleaning it up so much that you bleach everything. Since it's already bleached, you can count on it having a difficult time with light that is suddenly penetrating all the way down.

[discretekarma]

It's my dad's AC3 that said 4.17. I'm sure it either needs to be recalilbrated as you said or it's covered in algae or on the floor somewhere. That's good. I'm making new water already and I'll bring the rocks over on Sunday morning.

[Origami]

The probe is definitely in need of recalibration. It may even be beyond that, to tell the truth. If I had to guess, your Dad's tank is going to be somewhere between 7.8 and 8.3. Just mix up your new water and age it, and go from there.

 

(BTW, you sound pretty stoked about getting back in....)

[discretekarma]

I'm thrilled. I never wanted to get out but I was sort of forced to do so. I didn't think I would be able to get back in any time soon and then my dad offered me a complete setup. He'll be keeping the AC3 for some reason so I'm not too worried about that probe. Very Excited.

[discretekarma]

I know that the live rocks can be brought over with just wet newspaper on them. A few of them have corals that have grown right on to the live rocks. The only ones I can think of are GSP, Brownish Digi, and Zoas. Will it still be ok to jusy have wet newspaper on them? They'll be out of water for about 30 minutes if I do it that way.

[Origami]

Personally, I would submerge rocks with coral on them simply because it will help to stabilize the temperature of the corals in this cold weather.

[Coral Hind]

I think for a short 30 min move they would be fine covered with newspaper or better yet a wet towel. I would pick up some styrofoam shipping boxes from a LFS so the rocks can stay warm.

[davelin315]

I always worry about towels if they have been washed with regular laundry detergent as the scent that stays on the towels is evidence of perfumes and things left in the towel after a wash. If you do use towels, which certainly will hold a lot more water than newspaper, I would wash them first without any detergent in a hot cycle and then dry them without any dryer sheets or hang them to dry.