Tomorrow I move house. I need advice.

[ScubaFish802]

The only thing I would add to the above would be maybe start earlier than 6
Pressure/rushing can make us make mistakes, and somehow that type of stuff always takes longer than we plan for! lol

Good luck!

 

[vetteguy53081]

Unfortunately I only found out yesterday, these are strange circumstances.

I do have coral, would the fish be better in a bucket or bags in a thermo bag/cooler?

I’m worried about the bucket sloshing around everywhere while driving and losing all the water in the back of the van and not noticing

Buckets for me- the more air, the better although bags no problem either

 

[Kellie in CA]

I have moved my tank 5 times in the past 6 years. It's really not that bad.... it's just with everything else that comes with a move it can get overwhelming.

I like to use the white 2 gallon buckets from Home Depot to move the rocks and coral. Taking all the water will be impossible because once everything is disturbed the water will be all full of junk. I always use new sand for every move, but if you do reuse the sand, rinse the heck out of it.

 

[laezur]

I have moved my tank 5 times in the past 6 years. It's really not that bad.... it's just with everything else that comes with a move it can get overwhelming.

I like to use the white 2 gallon buckets from Home Depot to move the rocks and coral. Taking all the water will be impossible because once everything is disturbed the water will be all full of junk. I always use new sand for every move, but if you do reuse the sand, rinse the heck out of it.

Definitely feels overwhelming, I’ve only been given one and a half days notice so I’m a little flustered with it all.

I will rinse the sand to oblivion, I thought about going bare bottom just for a little bit while I buy some new sand but worried it’ll cause a weird cycle losing so much bacteria from removing all that sand

 

[DavidY]

I like to use the Rubbermaid tubs for transporting the rock. You can even use them for the fish if you have a short trip. Buckets, lots of buckets are also essential. If you're looking at having a longer time between moving and setup, grab a couple small heaters and an airstone and put them in with your livestock.

 

[kingoftheHiLLpeople]

Lots of buckets and or coolers.

 

[flashsmith]

Unless it's sudden my strategy is to start 3 months out by selling/donating all livestock. Drain and clean the tank and all equipment move it and start over. Much easier and alot less stressful. I'll be facing this in a year or so and can't imagine lugging buckets around.

 

[laezur]

Unless it's sudden my strategy is to start 3 months out by selling/donating all livestock. Drain and clean the tank and all equipment move it and start over. Much easier and alot less stressful. I'll be facing this in a year or so and can't imagine lugging buckets around.

Unfortunately it’s very sudden, one and a half days notice

 

[brandon429]

Laezur

Ford is right, its critical to rinse check this out/ 50 pages below worth of those rinses with no bottle bac, no ammonia testing, no losses

if you rinse sand that well, and make a cloudless skip cycle moving over your old rocks, your move transfer will lose nothing. watch out for jumping fish/any uncovered holding is a jump risk



*it does lose bacteria to rinse sand, it sterilizes the sand. That's beneficial bc we don't need sandbed bac, we need to be free of clouding that rides over as mud and can kill your new tank 5% of the time if unrinse, the other 95% get big algae outbreaks after the move. worms and bugs repopulate the sand from the live rock, we show several times in the thread below natural pod repopulation pictures.

a rinsed bed will do neither/ crash nor outbreak

 

[brandon429]

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

the sole purpose of that thread is successful tank moves and sandbed changes. we are approaching 8 yrs

read several jobs there to completion, pick any link off any page it's all same set of takedown, rinse, verify rinsed, reassemble with water and no bottle bac and no cycle worry, don't even bother testing for ammonia it will give you a false panic and then you'll dump a bunch of stuff in the tank to soup it

moving over your current water drained off is fine, add some new as stated above 20% perfect.

the only thing you are doing is transporting the clean surfaces to your new place to be reassembled, vs being in the same home from the takedown. same exact process either way.

 

[Dom]

I’m worried about the bucket sloshing around everywhere while driving and losing all the water in the back of the van and not noticing

This is why I suggested 5 gallon buckets "with lids".