Moving acro tank

[smacrophylia]

Well, tomorrow is the big day.

(Stress venting) Long story short I bought a new house about 15 mins up the road. Set up a brand new squeaky clean waterbox infinia frag 125. That tank is cycled and now holds all of my lps and zoas.

Now I have the daunting task of bagging up a few hundred acro frags and colonies tomorrow early AM before the homies come over to help empty and move this thing (waterbox infinia 175)

The moving of the heavy thing is no worry. My concern is…well…I have many…but mostly water related. This tank is crusty and aged in the best way possible. I want to save as much water as I can from the existing 175 but I haven’t done a water change in well over a year so I imagine once I start bagging and grabbing and moving things the water will cloud up with detritus.

Should I say no big deal just pump it into the trash cans? Once we get the tank moved and placed and ready to be filled back up won’t it have settled to the bottom of the trash cans?

Or do I take ages to pack up corals to minimize the dirty in the water then pump the cleanest water into cans and dump the bottom 10-20 gallons that have all the disgusting in it?

My biggest concern is taking too long to do everything and it pushing into the following day. To me that isn’t an option. I have my buddy helping with the smart people stuff like setting up the wiring ,lighting ,and server box for the Neptune system and other electronics. Some employees helping with heavy lifting. However no one has the immense desire for this to go well that I have so here’s hoping the homies don’t leave me hanging halfway thru lol wish me luck thoughts prayers and any positive juju u got


I HATE MOVING.

 

[bubbgee]

You could pump it out through a sock to get the detritus out. At least 50% you could save and then make the rest to get that water change. I'd prefer to use the old water to reduce the chance of shocking the corals again as if it was re-introduced to a tank (at least 50-60%).

 

[smacrophylia]

You could pump it out through a sock to get the detritus out. At least 50% you could save and then make the rest to get that water change. I'd prefer to use the old water to reduce the chance of shocking the corals again as if it was re-introduced to a tank (at least 50-60%).

Very true I didn’t even think of using a sock lol. good idea. I’m hoping to save almost all of the water but have about 70 gallons mixed and ready to fill in the blanks

 

[braaap]

Personally I wouldn’t save the water. Little to no benefit. If you can have similarly balanced water at the new house that is all that matters.

Im moving my tank 3 miles down the road in a couple of weeks I’ll have 70 gallons ready for the move. So all I have to do is put livestock in buckets. Coral in a bin(it is all on racks in prep for the move) and then brace rock with cheap beach towels from Walmart. I’m carrying the tank on the stand(IM50) into the back of a uhaul and driving it 3 miles down the road on a Sunday morning. In theory I should be totally done in less than 4 hours. But I’m planning for 8.

 

[smacrophylia]

Personally I wouldn’t save the water. Little to no benefit. If you can have similarly balanced water at the new house that is all that matters.

Im moving my tank 3 miles down the road in a couple of weeks I’ll have 70 gallons ready for the move. So all I have to do is put livestock in buckets. Coral in a bin(it is all on racks in prep for the move) and then brace rock with cheap beach towels from Walmart. I’m carrying the tank on the stand(IM50) into the back of a uhaul and driving it 3 miles down the road on a Sunday morning. In theory I should be totally done in less than 4 hours. But I’m planning for 8.

You wouldn’t even save the water for good luck? Lol Come on man

 

[braaap]

You wouldn’t even save the water for good luck? Lol Come on man

Absolutely not lol. Water is water. It’s been proven it doesn’t carry the nitrifying bacteria nearly as much as rock or sand. About the only benefit would be trace elements. Get your new water up to snuff and you’ll be good.

Either way I wish you luck. I’m sure everything will end up just fine.

 

[BryanM]

I think the effort to save water far outweighs its benefits (very little).

A gut call for me would be removing your frags, and still having clear water.... I'd probably save that if it was reasonably easy to do.

I saved half of my water for two reasons: It went in to temp tanks while I did a tank swap, and it saved me money with the business that helped me do the tank swap.

 

[smacrophylia]

Well…update…tank move complete.

Mass casualties. RTN for days. I’m not certain what caused the excess stress on the corals but a lot of them checked out. I had a rock with a frogskin colony on it that just went into a vat with all the other rock NOT temperature controlled in the Florida afternoon in a trailer and made it fine. It still looks great while other colonies of the same coral that were packaged nicely in a cooler didn’t make it. Hard to tell what went wrong…Water was abnormally cloudy for a day after adding everything in. I did a 60 gallon water change ran a carbon/gfo reactor and added bacteria. It cleared up the next day.

I would say 60% survival of coral. Sad stuff but I want to say the only complete wipeout of species was z’s blue Floyd (my avatar) and there is only one colony of scop left hoping it holds on. It was really hit or miss as to which pieces didn’t make it.

On the bright side the new fish room is coming together. Under the server box there will be a white backless cabinet to hide all the wiring with a countertop to match my kitchen so I have a frag station in between the two tanks. It’ll be rad

I gotta tell ya I am so happy that tank move is over.

 

[JonoH]

I know quite a few guys here that have moved, and decided to sell most of their livestock first.

Considering the task, looks like you've done pretty well!