Moving: How Should I Go About This?

[SeaHorseQueen]

Hey,

I'm getting ready to move my tank to another city. It likely won't be set up immediately getting to a temporary place. How long can you keep the live rocks in a bucket with water just above the surface without it dying off? For the corals, how do you go about transporting them? Being a 20g, do I need to keep any of the water since the rocks and sand contain the cycled bacteria? Do I need to buy anything in order to help the tank settle down before I add the coral and fish back in? What else do you suggest? I'm using a few 5 gallon buckets to keep the rocks "hydrated" with tank water.

 

[The_Bro]

When I moved my tank I used plastic storage totes with lids. I removed all my corals from my rocks and just left them in the tank until I was ready to move everything to the new house.
Rocks I brought over first and did the method of "cooking rocks" I think it was called. I placed the rocks in a bin, threw in a heater, and even stuck my skimmer in there. Keep them in a dark area. I did weekly water changes on my rock bin. This helped rid anything that was dead or decayed on the rocks during the transfer, and also will kill any unwanted photosynthetic beings on the rocks.
To get your sand out remove all your corals to a bucket with tank water. Toss in a heater
Drain your water and save it for reuse.
Suck out all your sand with a shop vac, put it in a bucket and keep it submerged with tank water.
Put all your water back into the tank and just put your corals back in. Basically just run your tank without sand or rock in it. Like a Frag tank!
When your ready and say this is Tank Day! Break down the tank, put your corals in a bucket with tank water. Move everything to the new house.
Make sure when you get to the new house you take care of the corals first, just by throwing a heater into their transfer bucket and keep them next to a window while they wait for their tank to be setup. This is a good time to clean up everything, tank, equipment, your old sand rinse it with rodi water.
Now just put it all back together and fill it with your old tank water, and new rodi water for whatever water is needed to top it off. Your tank may see a small cycle but mine was nothing to be worried about. I dosed bacteria just because.
Hope this helped