General moving questions

taz1458 · 2026-06-18T08:24:36-0400

I will be moving in the next 2-3 weeks and am trying to plan to move my tank. I have roughly 6 fish, coral that is all over several rocks and a ton of inverts for reference. I’ll be moving roughly 70 miles away so it’ll only be about a hour and a half or so. This is my game plan. Please let me know if it sounds stupid. I’m planning on the tank being one of the last things making the move. (I have a 40 gallon breeder for reference)

At the new house, run 50 gallons of new Rodi water, and dump this bag in(https://a.co/d/0iYPIF6X?tag=reef2reef-20)
Let the wave maker run that I bought for mixing water once done.

At current house, get fish into their own 5 gallon bucket with water and a heater and air stone. In an igloo cooler, put all rock with the coral into it along with the inverts and put water in above rocks with a heater and an air stone. Save at least 2 5 gallon buckets of old water. Drain rest of tank except a tiny bit of water in bottom above sand.

Once at new house, dump 2 5 gallon buckets of water in tank, and mix top half of sandbed as good as I can and siphon the hell out of it. Fill roughly half the tank with water and get the rocks the way I want them. Fill rest of tank with water and put inverts and fish back in.

Return to normal.

UnnamedReef · 2026-06-18T13:18:28-0400

Solid plan. There's a few good comprehensive moving guides on here that have a lot of lessons learned too. I've moved my tank cross country once and within a couple hours' drive twice. A couple recommendations about your current plan:

- Go slow, and expect it to take all day. Rushing it is the worst thing you can do, and if you've got heaters and bubble stones you can afford to take your time.
- I would strongly recommend removing your sand and rinsing it many, many times until the rinse (tap) water runs clear. Check sand rinsing threads on here for a more detailed explanation/process. Rinse once or twice with RODI afterwards. Stirring up your sand bed so thoroughly could drive a mini-cycle or release toxins that are trapped in the sand. I lost a few fish when I first started out over stirring my sand all at once, others have had similar experiences.
- If you can manage it you can always buy new sand and pre-rinse it so it's one less thing you have to deal with on the day-of. I did this for my second and third moves and it was a big time-saver to toss the old sand and replace.
- Use a heater in your new mixed water so it's up to temp and you don't have to wait
- Double check salinity of the newly mixed water to match your tank's water; don't trust the bag. Mixing it well ahead of time (several hours or overnight) can really help the parameters stabilize.
- You already seem to have this managed, but don't put fish and rocks in the same travel bucket. The rocks can shift and harm the fish.
- An ammonia badge in the new tank helped me to know if I was undergoing any sort of unexpected cycle. There's debates on their accuracy, but it made me feel better.

Good luck! Moving can be a lot, but you're thinking about it ahead of time and you've got the right things in mind

UnnamedReef · 2026-06-18T13:59:02-0400

Oh and also be aware of jumpers when you turn your back to catch another fish. I had a firefish hop out of a bucket on me and I didn't realize until it was too late.