Moving 500 miles away with 2 tanks.

[Anarcha0s]

What is the best way to go about moving 2 tanks over 500 miles? One is a 13.5 and the other is a biocube 32. Thanks!

 

[Sean1986]

I made the trip from cali to idaho, was right around 1000 miles. What I did was individually bag each coral, floated the bags of corals in a 5 gallon bucket with some water in the bucket to help keep some heat. Left all my fish in another 5 gallon bucket with some salt water. Used a converter and two water heaters. had about 5 buckets in total, would move my two heaters around as needed.

 

[Anarcha0s]

I made the trip from cali to idaho, was right around 1000 miles. What I did was individually bag each coral, floated the bags of corals in a 5 gallon bucket with some water in the bucket to help keep some heat. Left all my fish in another 5 gallon bucket with some salt water. Used a converter and two water heaters. had about 5 buckets in total, would move my two heaters around as needed.

Did you have the tanks themselves empty? What about the live rock? Did you have to re cycle the tank?

 

[Tallison]

Following along. I'm moving from Texas to Cali later this year and want to transfer everything but the tank

 

[ndrwater]

Move the tanks as empty as humanly possible. As for live rock, if kept moist, it will be fine for a couple of days let alone a few hours. With that said, there may be some die-off of whatever is on the rocks, especially so if there are corals that can't be removed and kept in a separate bucket or bag.
As for needing to re-cycle, there may be a mini cycle, but that really depends on how established the tank was to begin with.
As for moving fish, I would suggest hitting up your LFS to see if they will bag them in an appropriate sized bag with oxygen. I have shipped fish all over the world this way. Most if not all fish will survive 24 hours easily if kept an appropriate tempature throughout the journey. Same is to be said for corals.

 

[Sean1986]

I had my 30 gallon tank and stand in the back of the suburban. I used all the same rock it was kept in two 5 gallon buckets with tank water sealed shut. I pretty much arrived at the house used 40 pounds of new live sand. Used 50% new mixed water and 50% tank water. And used MicroBacter7 not sure if it helped I think I lost 2-4 corals out of about 25-30. Lost 1 of my two nems. And lost 1 fish out of 10. Tank didn't really seem to go through a cycle but i also wasn't testing and didn't lose anything after the set up.