Moving a reef tank across states

[West1]

I'm about to drive 900miles away and need to move my 45gl.

In doing reading, I see the common thing is buckets of tank water, portable air stones and livestock in an igloo type container.

Would putting liverock with as many corals into plastic containers (with holes) help fight any possible ammonia spikes?

I am curious to see if theres benefit to using seeded LR during transport.

I forecast the trip to be 2-3 days.

Tyvm

 

[cracker]

Gotta think about this one 2-3 days is a long time. What type of vehicle will you be moving your live stock& rock? I'd be concerned about the water getting too warm if in a pickup or trailer of some type as your cruising down the highway. the battery bubblers are no prob & cheap at the walmart (sporting good section) . the holed containers is a good idea for corals . if they are in a cooler with LR . I like the containers that straw or blueberries come in .

 

[GoatmealJones]

Gotta think about this 2-3 days is a long time. What type of vehicle will you be moving your live stock& rock? I'd be concerned about the water getting too warm if in a pickup or trailer of some type as your cruising down the highway. the battery bubblers are no prom & cheap at the walmart (sporting good section) . the holed containers is a good idea for corals

Could perhaps keep an small insulating ice chest with bags of ice to dip into water if heat is a problem. A temporary fix that could be addressed the next town over. Some kind of portable generator I would think would be a must for other params.

 

[West1]

I'll be traveling in a Uhaul and will be spending the night somewhere in between since I cant drive past 55mph. Usually a 16-18hr drive around 85mph in a car.

I had one idea about placing LR on the bottom of an igloo, egg crate on top of LR and glue coral plugs to the egg crate.
I'm for sure going to glue stuff to an egg crate, just trying to figure out how to fight any poor water.

Luckily most of my stuff is still rather small.

 

[brandon429]

The key for biological safety / no cycle in your move is accounting for and excluding detritus before the move

You don’t need any current sand to be moved. You can either blast rinse sand and move totally clean sand, or you can remove and discard current bed and replace with a new pre rinsed bed on the new setup. This addresses detritus in the sand zone issue

Clean the live rocks before moving by swishing them in a bucket of clean sw until no detritus castings come off, then the rock is ready to move


You will not have issues if you carry no detritus

Lastly, hold fish away from corals in the move so if a fish dies it won’t poison the corals in the same water

 

[West1]

The key for biological safety / no cycle in your move is accounting for and excluding detritus before the move

You don’t need any current sand to be moved. You can either blast rinse sand and move totally clean sand, or you can remove and discard current bed and replace with a new pre rinsed bed on the new setup. This addresses detritus in the sand zone issue

Clean the live rocks before moving by swishing them in a bucket of clean sw until no detritus castings come off, then the rock is ready to move


You will not have issues if you carry no detritus

Lastly, hold fish away from corals in the move so if a fish dies it won’t poison the corals in the same water

TYVM!

 

[brandon429]

Hey if it helps to see actual jobs from a work thread this is it. Cleaning an aquarium of filthy cyano or cloudy sandbed detritus is the universal prep move whether you are upgrading, downgrading, moving, beating an invasion, or just backflushing the clogging detritus out of reef rocks and sand as basic maintenance ...it turns out that the #1 recommend NOT to do from the 90’s (and from a few of today’s staunch holdovers) is exactly what we should do to make a reef tank recycle proof. Irony.

Many many tank moves linked here, all the same pattern work: rip clean the system at home 1000% cloudless. Then move over only pristinely clean but aged and still submerged substrates. That moves over all requisite bac.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/t...ead-aka-one-against-many.230281/#post-2681445


Many still hold the notion that massive pre cleaning is dangerous, harsh and interrupting-what does the work thread show~

 

[brandon429]

hey your upcoming job is literally what we do on that thread can you document for us n post the before during after I guarantee you a new mover next month will copy your method and be secure in prep much better having just seen you do it

The cleaner your system is when you move it, the safer the move. Partial cleaning out of fear of harming bac is the complete antithesis to all that logged work clean= you can’t generate a cloud of detritus anywhere, at any time during the move

 

[brandon429]

I love this biology. Your aquarium is worth a lot not even counting time investment and animal attachment, it w be on total life support during the reloc and we’re planning effective transfer ahead of time, good science.


One of the old rules of reefing was cycles ‘might’ occur or might occur a little bit. We had to take our chances, couldn’t disturb that sand or six worms might die and some bacteria we need.

Now we command when a cycle will occur, when it won’t, and when it will be skipped w confidence

Side note, the same action prevents the uglies phase in your new tank, simply disallowing any takeover by cleaning.

 

[West1]

Hey if it helps to see actual jobs from a work thread this is it. Cleaning an aquarium of filthy cyano or cloudy sandbed detritus is the universal prep move whether you are upgrading, downgrading, moving, beating an invasion, or just backflushing the clogging detritus out of reef rocks and sand as basic maintenance ...it turns out that the #1 recommend NOT to do from the 90’s (and from a few of today’s staunch holdovers) is exactly what we should do to make a reef tank recycle proof. Irony.

Many many tank moves linked here, all the same pattern work: rip clean the system at home 1000% cloudless. Then move over only pristinely clean but aged and still submerged substrates. That moves over all requisite bac.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/t...ead-aka-one-against-many.230281/#post-2681445


Many still hold the notion that massive pre cleaning is dangerous, harsh and interrupting-what does the work thread show~

Hmmm, interesting read. I just read the page that was in the link. I need to run around and focus on the larger portion of the move and yes, I will document the move.

I just briefly read on cleaning the sand bed, would rinsing my sandbed in new salt water and placing that in the coral transport containers be better than LR?
My LR is rather bulky, not many "flat" pieces and the weight of LR could damage corals.

Sorry if it's a dumb question, I haven't read the link yet.

 

[brandon429]

We rinse the sandbed in tap water, sw rinse runs out too fast before it is clear. Tap first for about half an hour or so, then final rinse in salt.

The live rock only needs to be kept semi wet to skip cycle and transfer over. They could be positioned in paint buckets, let em breathe don't seal up. Air holes in lid... The live rock is cleaned only in new saltwater, since we are trying to preserve coralline, pods and worms

 

[Tdawg]

how was the move? Any lessons learned? I have to move 450 miles in a couple of months

 

[West1]

how was the move? Any lessons learned? I have to move 450 miles in a couple of months

Long a single head Indo Gold Torch and a calikid favia of the gods frag.

These frags stayed over night in a bucket with a portable air pump. The following morning, I noticed all corals were stressed as expected but once I put them in the frag tank, those 2 specific corals never turned for the better. Everything else did and is doing good.

My suggestion is look at the forecast and transfer accordingly (Summer/ice packs winter/heat packs).
I did seperate corals from livestock as recommended.

I also made 2 levels with egg crate and left over PVC (glued). Center of eggcrate I put a hole to keep the air stone centered, worked well.

GL