Moving house soon. Cud use some advise?

Shootermcg · Oct 2, 2019

Hi fellow reefers. I'm moving house on Monday and have been freaking out about moving my tank. Mainly because I've packed everything that can get packed and im leaving the tank until the day or day before.
I have a 100gal tank plus sump. In the tank I have 3 chromas fish and 2 clowns and 6 corals and it's been up and running for about 7-8 months.
My plan for the move : I've bought 2 150ltr sealable drums and I have 2 boggys (platform with wheels) and after speaking with my LFS owner he has kindly offered me another barrel and boggy if needed.
So my plan is to drain the tank on Sunday night into the barrels. I'll be putting the fish and corals into a 35ltr sealable tub with a heater and powerhead. The live rock will be put into 1 of the barrels of water with a heater, powerhead and my filter socks to reduce die off after a wee clean .These barrels will be secured to the bogies using rachet straps. I think I'm going to bin my chunky crushed coral substrate and buy new fine substrate for gobbies and brrowing tank mates in the future (I wouldn't mind to hear ur thoughts on substrate and what best to accommodate fish and benifits of chunky vs fine substrate) .Once the tank sump and equipment are empty I'm going to give them all a good clean (just with cloth, brush and kitchen roll. Any tips wud be appreciated) once that's done I think all set for the following day. I've hired a looting van with tail lift that I get on Sunday and I plan to pack practically everything into the van
That night leaving the barrels and tank to deal with on the Monday. Which should just be a matter of ;
1.Wheeling barrels and tank into van and securing them

2.Moving all to new house

3.set up tank and add rock then new substrate

4. Pump water into new tank from barrels. I'm planning on making up 1 fresh Sw barrel and having 2 from my current tank.

5. Acclaimate fish and corals to DT temp and add.

I'm hoping by doing it this way I'll minimise die off to avoid having to cycle the tank again.

I wanted to put this on to see what ur thoughts were and if there is any easier ways to accomplish a move. Any ideas, input or advice us have would be brilliant. I'd also like to hear ur moving stories to see how others have done it.
Any tips or advise would be much appreciated.

Ps sorry for the long speil

Thanks Dougie

Iván Olalla · Oct 2, 2019

Sounds like a solid plan, have a bottle of bacteria in hand to help the system deal with ammonia spikes if there´s some die off...also if you plan to change the substrate prepare yourself to deal with a minicycle. Your bioload is not heavy, so the volume of water should help dilute those spikes.

A piece of advice: you´re already moving all, so plan ahead and modify whatever was unpleasant or hard to manage in your current setup, eg cable management

Good luck!

Edp251 · Oct 2, 2019

Looks good. Only caution is that sealable tub for the livestock. Be careful and not seal it for any significant length of time as all those critters need oxygen which may be depleted very quickly. Good luck!

Shootermcg · Oct 3, 2019

Thanks guys for taking the time to read this and reply its greatly appreciated. The barrels will only be sealed for transporting them and I'm only moving 10 minutes away then they can be opened again. So thinking they should be fine for 30mins or so. As for modifing things I defenetly will be changing my cable setup as just now everything is plugged in next to the sump which was fine at first because I had a cover over half of the sump which stopped Evaporating water from getting to the plugs. But when I added the skimmer the cover didn't fit anymore. So plugs and cables will be moved away from the sump when set back up

. I can't wait to get set up the new house, I have more space and big plans lol.

Shootermcg · Oct 3, 2019

What's ur thoughts on substrate is it better to get new finner sand for sand sieving crittors down the line. And if so what's the best way to rinse it?

brandon429 · Oct 3, 2019

Here is large thread solely on your type of work. Not any recycles

The sole thing you need to add to your plan is 100% pre rinsing your new live sand, no it doesn’t kill bacteria, and to jet out your live rocks with saltwater or swish them about in clean saltwater buckets before you set them up in the new tank so they don’t move waste tank to tank.

Bacteria are never the concern in a tank swap. It’s solely detritus transfer.

We are able to swap sandbeds across tanks reliably if you simply transfer no detritus. Take pics of your work and we w add to collection of works, be sure and check their posts for prep details critical details are there to get so many pages without loss

Your plan is just about what we use here. Even if you moved your life rock without water, in the air, it wouldn’t recycle (examples in there)

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

Shootermcg · Oct 3, 2019

That great I'll check that out. Thanks again for ur time

BeejReef · Oct 3, 2019

You're the man!

Any family to help, or are you flying solo?
To be painfully honest, my main concern isn't really tank-related. It's more along the lines of strong communication and understanding. Everyone is going to be stressed and looking to settle in and it might be difficult for them to understand and appreciate the time and attention you will need to give the tank, even while the television isn't set up or the couch won't fit through the door.

Shootermcg · Oct 3, 2019

Roped my bro in to help me. And I'm lucky enough to be able to get into the new house over the weekend to paint, carpet and wallpaper my daughters room so they'll be sorted on the Monday when we move in. And my misses has been well warned the tank needs to be in and set up first before I can start to help with unloading of the rest of the van. She gets it she's good that way plus she loves it to much to have any losses. So fingers crossed. Ill try get picture of the tank swap to keep u all posted. Thanks again for the inputs ;D

Shootermcg · Oct 14, 2019

Tank swap update. Sorry its took so long to post but it's been a hectic week. So I broke down the tank the Sunday evening before the move on the Monday. I underestimated the time the house move took so it didn't workout quite as planned above. I didn't manage to get the tank set up and filled again on the Monday. Mainly because I needed to rinse and sieve the sand to get all the chunky crushed coral substrate out because I didn't want it in the new setup.

So first thing Monday I sieved the substrate. Then filled the tank halfway and started trying to get the live rocks back in and in a formation I like. Tbh I had a nightmare of a time trying to get the rocks epoxed into place so much so that the water ended up going cloudy and I done it blind lol. Once I felf I had the rocks the way I wanted them I added the rinsed sand which worked out great after I sieved out all the chunky bits. I then filled the rest of the tank. Now this is where I messed up a bit. Because I ended up being about 15lts of water short to fill the tank so I stole some from the makeshift tank that the corals and fish were in. Knowing that that tank wud be pretty toxic by this point. But with no other water and needing to get the tank up and running I had no other option. After filling it to the point that the tank was now running it was the back of 12 at night. It was obviously cloudy but it was crystal clear by 6 am.

At this point I test the DT water
Ammonia= 0.02
Nitrite=0
Nitrate=10

I tested the Temp tank to see how bad it was.
Ammonia =2.0
Nitrite= 5
Nitrate =50 I think trying to do this of the top of my head but ammonia and nitrate were the highest number on the colour chart.

So again with no option I needed to move the fish and coral to the DT.
I added atm colony to help on the Tuesday night before adding everything midday Wednesday. So that's about it. All the fish and corals look good so far and I'll keep checking the parameters to see how it plays out. Just wanted to let us know how I got on and to help anyone else going through similar situations. Thanks again for the help along the way I'll add what little pictures I got along the process.

brandon429 · Oct 14, 2019

It isn't easy moving tanks of that size I bet it works out fine. Ammonia crashes are events that happen 12 hrs or less, they're not an extended event in reefing if the testers we use are accurate it will show any reef tank commanding ammonia quickly even after a legit event, if the cause is removed or attended. It's nice to know ammonia doesn't go up, down, then tricking up again...down is done. I say if you get past day two you're home free

Shootermcg · Oct 14, 2019

Funny u say that. Cause I put everything back in on Wednesday. And test the water the above results for the DT. And I thought I'm not chasing numbers and testing every day. That corals all looked happy especially the goniopora which doesn't really like bad parameters. So I thought I'll leave it and see how it plays out plus with the move I've had no time. So I tested it yesterday which was day 5. With the same results and I thought if it's not gone up then that's a good thing lol. Need to get my ro filter set bank up so I'm prepared incase it changes. As waters not the easiest to get due to family life.

Shootermcg · Nov 2, 2019

Just a wee update on my tank. A couple of days after my last Post the water was clear of ammonia and nitrite with nitrate of 10. All the corals have been thriving except one. I seem to be losing zoanthid polyps. I noticed when I first put them back in that a good portion of the colony were closed up maybe 10-15. They never opened and just shrunk away to nothing. I thought losing some was understandable after the move but its continuing to move to the next head then the next. I'm about 30 or so polyps down now. Other than this the colony looks good and healthy. I don't have a small hitchhikersing crap that I'm yet to catch. Does anyone have any ideas?