Need help moving large fish

[ariellemermaid]

I’ve agreed to purchase a Red Sea XL 525 (139g total). Seller is taking care of break down and moving the tank, I just need to look after the fish and corals until I can get it set up. My fundamental question here is how would you move ~6 large fish including: bristle tooth tang, hippo tang, rabbit fish, angle fish, mandarin, and a medium/large clown? The move is just across town, however, I’m on my own for water and setting up the tank. Fish look very healthy but have never been truly QT’d and treated for ich, he just uses a UV system. I’m just concerned how long it might take to set the tank back up.

Here’s what I have to work with:

• 20g coral/invert QT with a month to 76 days. I’d rather not reset the QT time and it has no cover.
• 20g fish QT that will be done in 2 days with a yellow tang, 2 cardinals, and a royal gramma.
• 40g DT with sand, live rock, inverts, 2 small clowns, and a few other peaceful very small fish.
• 6x 5G buckets
• 2x 44g brutes + 1x 32g brute
• 1x spare heater although the seller’s tank has 2 and I ordered 2 online that might arrive by this weekend, or not.
• Lots of air pumps and stones
• Prime. Lots of Prime.

What I’ve been thinking:

• Make 139g of salt water using the brutes and 5 buckets ready to go. I could pre-heat some of the water but not all of it. Alternatively I could fill some of the buckets with old water but no way to transport full brutes. Any buckets with fish though should probably be discarded, no?
• Keep the fish in temporary storage until the tank is set up and warm. No clue how long this will take me and assuming all the plumbing goes back together without issues.

What I don’t want to do is mix any water or fish with my current set up. We’ve been religious about QT and copper treatment so the 40g is off limits with its rock, sand, fish, and inverts. They’re going to go in a different new tank.

Eventually we might fallow the tank and QT the fish vs. just do ich management with that tank but that’s a discussion for another day. (If we turn the 40g into a copper QT could that many fish be ok for 76 days in that size of tank- or maybe split between the 20g and 40g?) For now just need to complete the move and keep the fish alive. I could move my fish out of the 20g QT to the current DT and use that, but that would be adding to the stress of all fish...but 20g is probably better than 5 or 10.

So back to my original question, given the fish list and the fish size, what temporary storage containers would you guys recommend? Separate buckets for each fish is out because of a lack of heaters. I could buy a large tote but 10g is probably the maximum of liftable (83lbs). I don’t know how long it will take me to reassemble my first tank of this size, but planning for the worst let’s imagine the fish will need to be in there up to 24-36 hours for assembly, filling, and heating. Also there are 2 corals but only one concerns me, an absolutely huge leather. I haven’t read much about temporary storage for corals; would it be ok in a bucket with heat +/- air pump? In other words do corals have fewer requirements than fish (at least in terms of worrying about ammonia)?

Back to the fish, given y’all’s experience, is there a logical breakdown whereby some fish go into one 5g bucket and the rest into another based on the list? Or maybe 3 if my heaters come in time? Or would it be best to throw them all in a 5G bucket then into the 20g QT (30 minute drive)?

 

[Greenreef75]

I just did my move recently, I transported in 5 gal buckets. I bought a hundred gal livestock tank from tractor supply and set that up as my temp tank with heat and flow, while I set up my RSR 650P. I would definitely discard the water you transport the fish in.

 

[ariellemermaid]

I just did my move recently, I transported in 5 gal buckets. I bought a hundred gal livestock tank from tractor supply and set that up as my temp tank with heat and flow, while I set up my RSR 650P. I would definitely discard the water you transport the fish in.

That’s a huge temp tank! How long do you think it took you to set the tank back up and heat?

 

[rwreef]

I agree with stock tank idea of you have the space.

 

[Greenreef75]

It took a full 24 hr period

 

[ariellemermaid]

It took a full 24 hr period

Yikes that’s a long time! I guess another option would be to dump the fish in a 32g heated/air stone brute. That’s at least more water and more space. It would leave me 32g short of water, however, I would have enough to fill the tank and start the power heads. My heaters won’t come in time but if I steal his 2 heaters when I remove the livestock I could get a jump on heating the rest of the water.

 

[ZoWhat]

Dont take advice from this guy

 

[TitansFan]

You seemed to have this all worked out! Your move will go fine. Just space the fish out in the buckets and make sure to use air pumps and use their current water for transport. The fish will be stressed enough to not bother each other. If you really need to store them for 24-36 hours before back in the tank then maybe put them in a brute trash can with a few air pumps, small power head, and heater. You might even be able to QT them that way with some copper except the manderin... they don’t usually have ich issues because of their slime coating and I worry about him eating.
The corals stored alone won’t have ammonia issues so you are good there.

good luck you seem to have this well planned out!

 

[ariellemermaid]

You seemed to have this all worked out! Your move will go fine. Just space the fish out in the buckets and make sure to use air pumps and use their current water for transport. The fish will be stressed enough to not bother each other. If you really need to store them for 24-36 hours before back in the tank then maybe put them in a brute trash can with a few air pumps, small power head, and heater. You might even be able to QT them that way with some copper except the manderin... they don’t usually have ich issues because of their slime coating and I worry about him eating.
The corals stored alone won’t have ammonia issues so you are good there.

good luck you seem to have this well planned out!

Thanks, the more I think through all the logistics the bigger headache I get. A few hours ago I also realized I’m just going off the Red Sea data sheet for volumes. Now the volumes don’t appear to be based on strict dimensions and even if they include typical fill heights they don’t take into account live rock and sand, so I might not even need as much water as I’ve been initially calculating.

I feel like I do need backup plans though. The seller doesn’t know anything about reefing (“what about the green and pink things?”.....”Um....do you mean the CORALS?”). So in his mind he’s going to use some of his handymen to break the tank down and no big deal. So if a pipe fitting breaks, the job takes 2 days instead of 1, or if the tank or sump breaks I need to be ready. He doesn’t even have brutes or pumps (aside from return pumps), just uses a maintenance company (that does a good job) and has a small DI container. Where are these handymen even going to put the water, get the water out of where they put it, and empty the sump?! Not my problem though....unless my house becomes a homeless fish shelter.

 

[00W]

Matching salinity and temp is all you need. Water in rock in fish in.
Use as much of the original tank water as you can. In the 30 minute drive temperature will not change much.
Don't worry about filling the whole tank up. Make up new water. While it's going do plumbing etc. Add new water. Fish will adjust while you are setting up.
Should only take an hour or so to get them back in the tank. That's their storage unit, not the brute's. They'll be fine.
Change water next day maybe two. You have lots of water volume so no worries. No cycle this way only clean tank with happy fish.
No QT. They're all the same.
No meds they're not sick.
Only a couple of things I'd suggest.
Toss the sand unless you move it with the tank and don't disturb it. Or toss it you can add later.
Make sure you have plenty of help and time.
I moved 4 very large fish in a Coleman cooler lined with a black plastic bag. I liked the cooler because it was much more stable. It also had handles on it. I knew it wouldn't slosh or fall over. Use the buckets for water and rock. I moved all 100 gallons six hours in one day. Two days later 50 percent water change. I've done this same thing 3 times the same way with the same fish.
No issues except my back.

Best of luck
Let us know how it goes
Joel

 

[Greenreef75]

If you think about it, fish ship in the mail all the time in a lot smaller containers over a 24 hr period. So doing it same day in what you have should be good

 

[ariellemermaid]

Matching salinity and temp is all you need. Water in rock in fish in.
Use as much of the original tank water as you can. In the 30 minute drive temperature will not change much.
Don't worry about filling the whole tank up. Make up new water. While it's going do plumbing etc. Add new water. Fish will adjust while you are setting up.
Should only take an hour or so to get them back in the tank. That's their storage unit, not the brute's. They'll be fine.
Change water next day maybe two. You have lots of water volume so no worries. No cycle this way only clean tank with happy fish.
No QT. They're all the same.
No meds they're not sick.
Only a couple of things I'd suggest.
Toss the sand unless you move it with the tank and don't disturb it. Or toss it you can add later.
Make sure you have plenty of help and time.
I moved 4 very large fish in a Coleman cooler lined with a black plastic bag. I liked the cooler because it was much more stable. It also had handles on it. I knew it wouldn't slosh or fall over. Use the buckets for water and rock. I moved all 100 gallons six hours in one day. Two days later 50 percent water change. I've done this same thing 3 times the same way with the same fish.
No issues except my back.

Best of luck
Let us know how it goes
Joel

Great point about not needing to fill the whole tank up initially to get the fish in. Assuming they don’t get stalled in breakdown/delivery.

As for wanting to QT eventually it’s more that we’ve run our first tank under an ich eradication philosophy and spent a lot of time and effort treating everything that goes into it. I have to assume this tank might have latent ich. That said, I suppose if we can’t copper the mandarin and can’t get access to CP, it would never be a perfect QT anyway.

We’re really excited about the mandarin. It’s big and healthy, we saw it eating flakes and there’s no way that guy doses copepods. Never would have bought such a finicky fish on our own.

 

[ariellemermaid]

Matching salinity and temp is all you need. Water in rock in fish in.

Silly noob tank move question but if I’m able to match the temp and salinity, will I also need to do an acclimation before adding the fish to whatever water level I have in the tank? Assuming I throw away the water in the fish/coral buckets, a significant percentage of the water when I first add them will be new salt water. Thinking about ph.

 

[00W]

Yeah so good question.
I sometimes test the pH of my new water to that of the tank and, honestly, it's not much different so I wouldn't worry too much about that.
I really just try and use the most original tank water I can and it all balances out.
The only water I toss in the move is what the fish were transferred in cuz it's no bueno. I use a bucket too for cleaning/ basting rocks. Then I throw that out.
You can put a powerhead in a bucket of new water and pump it in the tank. That works well for slow and effective acclimation.
Wanted to get back to you sooner but been working all day.
So go slow. Be mellow. Have fun always.
Water in. Rocks in. Fish in. New water in. Every question you have is a good question. Hopefully I have helped and if you need more hit me up anytime.
Joel

 

[ariellemermaid]

Always think it’s good to close out a thread....

Back story is that we realized after first seeing the used tank that he was asking way too much money. So we closed the book and ordered a Red Sea XXL 750. Before it arrived, the guy got back to us, cut the price in half, and offered to deliver! So one big tank downstairs, one smaller but still large one up, why not?!

Well, after stockpiling 120g of saltwater and buying enough sand for 2 tanks, the night before the move he said his handyman was out with covid and well....we never heard back from him. Probably didn’t need to spend that money anyway and can put it towards our mega (for us) tank.

Anyway, thanks for the advice, we definitely feel more prepared if another tank for the main floor pops up again.