Success with a Mobile Reef Tank

[isufishtank]

Hello everyone! This will be an ongoing thread over the next few years that I hope will turn into a good discussion so everyone can share some experience. Some background: I am in college and currently live in the dorms with a 28g freshwater and a 20g long saltwater tank. There are a few difficulties such as space and spring/winter vacation that are easily addressed. However, the rather enormous issue of my need to frequently move the tank still needs to be addressed.

As a note, I won't be mentioning the freshwater here because this isn't Pond2Pond, however that tank, while larger, should not take a major hit from being moved. My saltwater tank which will eventually have coral is another story. I've already moved the tank to my dorm while it had 1 fish (a firefish) in it and all went well. The main purpose of this thread will be to follow through the numerous moves I have yet to complete (with and without coral) and get input from other frequent or infrequent movers.
As always, any input or personal experience is very welcome; Let's see what other reefers have come up with to move their reefs!

In the long-term I would also like to determine a baseline for success on a tank that must be moved frequently: Is it possible to have a thriving tank that must be moved often? How can you move a tank with the LEAST impact on fish, inverts, coral, and overall stability? What kind of reef can you realistically keep with frequent moves? Hopefully we can come to (as best a community of reefers can) some form of consensus on these questions :)

 

[Big G]

Great post. With our ever increasingly mobile population, info like this will help tremendously.

 

[isufishtank]

Now for some specifics on me and my moves. When I move my tank I only have an ~40 minute drive. My main focuses when I move the tank has been and will continue to be swiftness, thoroughness, and preparedness. It's fairly simple to assume that the faster the livestock get back to their home, the better their chances of survival. Another key is to be thorough; It doesn't take much to mess up a big move. Lastly is preparedness and this another obvious one. Plan everything beforehand to reduce the number of unwanted surprised or mistakes. There is quite a lot to say about each of the three focuses and I am sure there are many more we could add: This is simply what I use.

Swiftness, as previously stated, is an obvious but massively important part of making sure your tanks inhabitants survive a move. Thoroughness often slows you down while preparedness speeds things up: keep this in mind. You need to balance everything you ideally want to do (ie. using coolers, transporting large volumes of water, etc) with what will be reasonably quick. For me this wasn't too much of a challenge since I have a small tank. A 5 gallon bucket and a Styrofoam box worked just fine for transporting ~7 gallons of water, all of my live rock, and my cleanup crew and firefish. I left JUST enough water in the tank to keep the live sand covered. As a result, I only needed to mix another 6-8 gallons of saltwater after getting everything set up. In addition, I had the help of my brother in moving boxes and the tank itself. All of this made the move relatively quick and I believe this is why I managed to keep everything alive.

Thoroughness is a vague term that I sum up as doing everything possible to support the survival/success of the tank within a reasonable time frame. This includes paying attention to which fish are shipped together, paying attention to parameters of the new water that is added once the tank is moved, and a million other tiny details. A good example of my own personal failure in this respect: I completely ignored the fact that I had left my Nassarius snails in the sand that had been drained almost completely of water! Upon arriving I realized this and they both made it just fine, but tiny mistakes like this can lead to not-so-tiny consequences.

Preparedness is the crown jewel of the entire moving process. If you aren't fully prepared for a move, DON'T DO IT. Being prepared is another broad term that includes everything from ensuring you've got enough buckets for your fish to checking to see if your car will fit not only your tank but everything else you are bringing with. Is the location you're moving the tank to ready to go? Do you have someone to help you? Do you have a step-by-step plan? To put it simply: being prepared is the keystone to a successful move. I will admit that I did not plan as well as I could have and got lucky to have everything run smoothly on my first move. I had my brother to help but I largely made decisions on the fly and had only a very general idea of how the move was going to go before I began the move. Again, it's a miracle I pulled it off.

Those are my three focuses when I move a tank, but I would love to hear more opinions! What small or large things do you personally to speed up the process, be thorough, or prepare? Are there any other things that must be addressed? Tell me :)

 

[isufishtank]

Now for last of this onslaught of text: my moving schedule. I have a pretty intense moving schedule from here on out. After the end of the semester (May) I'll be moving 40 minutes back to Des Moines, IA from Iowa State University. The tank will stay there for the remainder of the summer until I need to move back to ISU again in the fall. This means approximately 3-4 months between moves each time. Not ideal, I know! Even further in the future, I'll have to make plans to move it much further depending on what internships I end up getting. Hopefully I won't have to move so far that I will be forced to let the tank go, but that's all far away.

If you're interested in my upcoming personal experiences with frequent moves or what others have to say, listen to the thread! I'll be updating regularly on methods I plan on trying, the preliminary planning process, and difficulties I come across along the way. If you have moved recently or are planning on it, feel free to post some info on your migration and what methods you used/are using to make it happen! As always: Thanks and Happy (Mobile) Reefing!