Long move of a 125

[Aparker2005]

Hey everyone. Been a while since I've posted. Wife and I are planning to move soon closer to her family, which is about 4.5 hours north of us right now. We are stressing about moving our 125 reef.

I was thinking once we have a house up there, get roughly 3 brute trash cans and have water mixed/heated in each. Have sand ready to go with some turbo start.

Break down our tank, keep fish in buckets with old tank water, and use as much of it as we can.

My main concern is all of our live rock which has a lot of coral attached to it. Not sure how we're gonna move all that. I'm gonna assume we're probably gonna lose a few corals or possibly even some of the bacteria?

We also have a 20g bare qt tank underneath the 125.

Any advice on planning this move would be appreciated!

 

[brandon429]

I would really like a fresh example of a tank transfer like that for this tank transfer thread:

We can for sure preserve the rock and coral

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

The one thing to change in the plan is how you handle the sand

It must be rinsed like we do if you want the safest move, and transported in the clean condition then moved into the new setup as a cloudless re install. You can drain over and bring your current water too. Be able to provide at least 50% new water in the setup for a fresh start

Don't forget the trick we do with the lighting that's critical bleach prevention, study some jobs there

The live rock with corals: move it in water where you can in totes and for other sections where rock is attached to coral and can't be toted over in shallow water you'd move it outside water and mist spray it with a squirt bottle of saltwater

That won't kill its filter bacteria and the corals can survive in only mist a few hours

 

[brandon429]

Try and take detailed pics

If you can secure down a piece of live rock secured, no roll, you could use five gallon buckets to move over fish and inverts

Some bubbling bait box air

Running over a chunk of live rock in the transport vessel, will be a mini aquarium for the fish=keeps ammonia down. Secure a section of washed off (in saltwater) live rock in the middle of each moving bucket

Not one time in that whole thread was a small portion of old unrinsed sand moved over, that can kill your fish.

We didn't lose anything in those logged tank transfers, you can control your losses.

That's simply several thousand dollars on the line, but the trick is if you handle each section carefully and make a cloudless transfer + reassembly of substrates in the new tank with clean water matching temp and salinity, and you re ramp the lights it'll skip cycle transfer

 

[Uncle99]

Cant the rock, coral and fish be together in more brutes?
Get new sand, old sand just a PITA. Keep a cup of old sand for seeding.
You’ll need to run airstone in each for your trip.
You may need to heat them depending on weather in your area.
They are going to be heavy so you need a way to move the brutes.
We strap them to a two wheeler, but not sure what obstacles you have in your new house.
You’ll lose a bit, but it will recover.

 

[RedoubtReef]

I did a 5 hour move and here are my thoughts:

• Get styrofoam shipping containers from your LFS, Petco/Petsmart, or wherever for your livestock. Get bags also and package things like the LFS does when you purchase something. Fill the bags with air etc...
• Ice chests come in handy for moving rock and sand with enough water to keep them wet. Used ones from Craigslist maybe?
• Get a 100 gallon Rubbermaid stock tank and have a way to put your lights over it. I did this and rigged up a quick 2x4 'rack' to attach my lights to over the stock tank. You can place equipment and styrofoam containers in it while in transit. You won't have as much time with a move as you think you will and this will be a quick setup so you can deal with other stuff.
• You will need more water than you think. If you can find them local, get one or two or even 3 of those screwtop olive/food shipping barrels (example:https://www.eaglepeakcontainer.com/)
• Extra heaters to get water up to temp once you move things into the stock tank.
• Extra water
• Extra water
• Extra water

 

[brandon429]

Well said.

For a tank like that

Buy a strong inverter for the car so Some small preset heaters can run for the trip. Keep temps close to 78

 

[mich2599]

Was this move ever done?

 

[Aparker2005]

Was this move ever done?

No, thankfully. With the economy the way it is, plus current interest rates, moving to a MUCH more expensive city, we've decided to stay put and save toward eventually building a new house a few years down the road in our current city.