The Transcontinental F8 Puffer Move

[Cooper]

Let me know your thoughts. If it sounds too risky I'll find another way. I have over a month to make alternate arrangements.

I'll be moving from Los Angeles to Charlotte, NC in December. I've had an F8 for about 2 months now (I think??) and I don't trust any of my friends to make a weekly 50% water change and properly care for him.

I have a 5 gallon Eclipse corner aquarium. I also found a current inverter at Radio Shack which converts a cig lighter plug into a 3 prong outlet with 140 watts (current 110v). The filter and heater will only eat up about 75 watts so I think it'll be fine. As it will be December I didn't want him in Tupperware without a heater.

Anyway, I'm planning on putting much of the substrate, plants, and maybe a gallon of tank water along with all the filter media in there and probably go ahead and get a $15 pack of Bio-Spira just in case. I'm ordering a 15 or 20 gallon to be waiting for me in NC when I arrive and will take a 30 gallon hob filter and 100w heater, hydrometer, salt, etc. with me. When I arrive in NC, I'll set up the new tank and move him in.

This corner 5 is perfect to secure in the floor behind the passenger seat but the filtration runs through the top. I'm afraid any kind of bump will send a little splash out of the filter tray and onto the carpet. Should I buy a little completely under-water filter for it? Am I insane for doing this? It'll be a good 3 days in the car and I assumed the 2 nights I can carry the 5 gallon/50 pound aquarium into my hotel room and plug him in for the night. He'll be a max of 10 minutes without heat and filtration whenever I stop to gas up and use the restroom.

Thoughts/comments/suggestions? Since he's under water will he go crazy with the vibrations in the car? After reading the tales of some of the multi-hour/day journeys some other forum members have made with fish in tow, I'm thinking his conditions will be downright luxurious. Anyone along I-10 or I-20 want a couple of house guests overnight? One is very small and has his own aquatic bed . . . . . .

[HRPuffersnStuff]

My thoughts... Your puffer is a lucky one. If you are willing to try it, GO FOR IT! I am a Navy wife, so I expect to have to do this (again) at some point, and you just gave me some great ideas for my next trip... Allthough I do have a considerably larger number of puffers... I made a 13 hour trip with my babies in the backseat. They were just in a bag with air. It seems to me that you have thought this through very well and I would not anticipate any problems other than the obvious stress of the situation. If you feel that you can't trust anyone else (me neither!!) then do everything you can to keep him. There are very few people who want to take the time and energy to care for puffers like those of us here.

[PetPirate]

Test a filter/pump on the inverters output (btw 110V is voltage... 140W is current) first.

The filter may not be happy the with modified square wave the inverter puts out --- and indeed the inverter might not be terribly happy with the inductive load of a pump. The heater will be fine.

I would test the setup with a spare filter for hours/days first to see if it will work reliably. It might be a good idea to get the biggest inverter available - for inductive loads, you normally multiply the rated current by at least two to get a decent headroom safety factor. Inverters are cheap these days anyway.

Other thoughts: yes, he'll likely be pretty stressed. Make sure there're no sharp edges in the tank should he go flipping out. I'd also ensure the tank remains dark, if possible.

Finally, with all this care and attention, make sure you keep the main filter ticking over... and be careful with the water change at the other side... as the water could have very different parameters.

[Pufferoni]

I think you plan sounds good, after all it went through far worse getting to you in the first place.

My only suggestion is sit the whole operation in a small cooler(plastic not Styrofoam). This will save the carpet from spills, keep him in the dark, insulate to help out the heater and provide a couple of handles for moving.

Would a little foam underneath absorb some vibration?

Good luck with the move.

[GSPdragon]

good luck with your move, I'm planning something similar on a much larger scale.

We're moving to NJ from MI (12 hour drive... going to TRY to get my husband to do it straight through... we'll also have our 2 1/2yr old, our dog, and two cats... fun eh?)

I have a 50g full marine with my GSP & LR to move, along with a 24g aquapod reef with 4 fish, lots of corals, and LR.

5g with cherry shrimp, 5g snail breeder, 5g betta, 3g betta.

I have battery powered air pumps, I will also be buying a power converter to run heaters for my saltwater critters (the shrimp,snails,bettas will go without). Plan to use lots of rubbermade containers and have a sore back the next day LOL

For you... I would do as someone else suggested and place your 5g into a rubbermaid container or cooler... I also wouldn't bother filling it to the top and/or using the stock filter...maybe just get a battery powered air pump and run the heater.

let us know how it goes

[Cooper]

Thanks for the clarification PetPirate! I checked and they range from 25-150w that I could find for under $30. I added it up and I should only use 75w so I'm hoping 140 (being almost double) is a good idea. I'll set up the tank with fresh water and drive around with it for a few days before to make sure it works. Hadn't thought of doing a "dry run" so to speak. I think I will buy one of those little stingray underwater filters or something similar that's small and completely underwater that I can fill with my own media. At night in the hotel I'll plug it in properly and maybe give him a little light and interaction and a bite to eat. Not going to feed him nearly as much as usual, but figured a bite to eat might make him less stressed.

One last question -- can I take the filter floss from the current tank and just put it down in the tank to keep it alive and working? Maybe not all but at least a big portion of it?

Thanks for the input!

[PetPirate]

The bio filtewr will be more importantr than the floss... you'll need to keep it watered and aerated at least.

It just occuirred to me that you'll also need to check the heater. It is fine as a load.. but the built-in thermostat might have something to say about the inverter's output.

[CoreyK]

At night in the hotel I'll plug it in properly and maybe give him a little light and interaction and a bite to eat.

Hehe, that sounds like fun actually to bring your puffer on a little trip with you. Sometimes I wish I could bring mine everywhere lol.

[ChesapeakeSwellfish]

Cool topic. If I was doing this cross-country, I would bring a heater for the hotel stays, but might try to control water temp with air temp in the car - just one less thing to go wrong.

Most of the little battery operated air pumps are junk, IMO. And air is mostly nitrogen so aeration is an inefficient method of providing oxygen.

I would personally carry a small oxygen bottle (welding supplies) with a regulator and fine air stone (total cost about $200-$225). A far cheaper alternative would be a bait cooler that comes rigged with a submersible pump behind a screened area of the cooler and aerates with a spray bar far more vigorously than the small portable air pumps.

Good Luck and please report on your trip!

[marfisa]

We (my girlfriend and I) moved our five puffers and one goby from NJ to TX last December. And a cat and bird, but that was easy. =p

We had two figure 8s (about 1.5" max each), two GSP (about 2.5" max each) and one monstrous GSP (about 5.5"), plus the goby. At the time, we weren't able to find much information about how to move them, so we just did what we thought would work out for the best, and everyone made it. It was a three day trip and we did bring everyone inside for motel stops.

We didn't feed them for about three days before the move so they wouldn't poop up their small environments any more than, er, necessary.

We moved them all in paint buckets from the hardware store (Home Depot or Lowe's would have them), all with lids. Filled them up with water from the tanks, put in the fish along with some "oxygen stones" (tablets?) then put on the lids. Of course the lids had a bunch of holes in the top. The smaller fish were in 2-3 gallon buckets and the biggest GSP went in a 5 gallon pail. The larger buckets had battery powered pumps too. Noisy, and I'm really not sure how well they worked. =/

Keeping them warm in the car was as simple as keeping them in the front seat (secured, of course!) and keeping the heat on. We also wrapped the buckets in blankets, being careful not to cover the tops. They did get a little cold anyway since it was December and there's only so much heat a human can bear, but it was the best we could do. We planned to use an electric blanket but it didn't work with the car converter we brought, so plans had to be changed at the last minute.

The smaller fish didn't have any problems at all. The only one who seemed like he wouldn't make it was the large GSP, who was very dark and wasn't moving around much by the time we arrived. His bucket got pretty cold because of the volume of water; harder to keep it warm. As soon as we got him into his tank, though, he brightened up instantly and was normal.

I know it's not the best way, but these little guys are pretty tough and none of them ended up sick or stressed after the move. I think the biggest problem was keeping everything at a decent temperature, they were really upset about being cold. If I had to do it again, I would try and find some sort of portable heater. Heaters freak me out, though, I hate the glass ones. I've had one break on me before, and I think it was because the large GSP liked to bite it a lot. =/

The only problem was that the big GSP tried to eat his oxygen tablet. ^o^

Oh, we also brought as much gravel and water with us as we could in separate buckets to make it easier for us to set up the tanks once we got there.

[crazy loaches]

I havent moved my fish ever but I have powered them by inverter during a power outage here that lasted for 3 days. The inverter powered 2 tanks. I can't remember for sure but it was $30 from Sams Club and if I remember correctly it was a 550W, and I used every watt it had. The pumps and motors all worked but were louder due to the inverters 'modified sine wave'. The heaters I am not to sure about, the 75G has 2 x 250W heaters that werent doing much to keep the temps up but then again the house was around 40 degrees for the most part so maybe the heaters just couldnt keep up. I cant remember if I actually saw the light on em or not, but I am pretty sure I did. I hope to be getting a generator for the house so hopefully if we get hit with a bad storm like this one again it wont be a problem.

[Cooper]

Hey all!

I haven't hardly logged on since November but thought you all should hear the update.

Buzz the F8 and I moved from Los Angeles to Charlotte in December. It went swimmingly! (groan/hiss I know)

I moved him from my office aquarium to a 5 gallon acrylic aquarium along with all of the media, about 1/2 of the gravel and all of the plants. Tested the water and he had to stay in it a week before we left. Did a 75-80% water change before the trip and then the morning of I removed 1/3 of the water. Basically he had 3-3.5 gallons of water for the road. I bought the inverter for the cigarette lighter and plugged in the heater. The filter wouldn't work. I bought a smaller internal filter and that wouldn't work either. I decided he'd be OK, as long as the water wasn't too cold.

Each night I filled the tank and turned on the filter. During the day the media went down into the water and each evening it was rinsed in bottled water and poured in 2 gallons of pre-mixed instant-ocean fortified water the night before. I then dechlorinated another gallon of hot tap from the hotel and mixed it with the brackish water. Let it sit till it got down to about 75-80 and poured it in. Worked like a charm! I was on the road 3 nights and he was unphased! We got to charlotte and I made a trip to Petsmart. Got a 20 long -- way too big for my space -- took it back. Found a 15 galon at another store. Set it up and he's fine.

Problem -- he's on the kitchen counter. Right next to prime sandwich making counter space. Now I have a beagle on the floor staring at me and a puffer fish begging from the other side. It's cute and unnerving at the same time. If only the dog could see that high, I think he'd be jealous.

That's it! Take care! Coop

P.S. anyone know of a good fish store here in Charlotte?? Haven't had time to investigate yet.

[Phaedrus]

Glad to hear everything went well. I always dread having to move even within the same city.

[crazy loaches]

Wow thats a long trip, glad to hear the fella made the trip ok. That sucks the inverter wouldnt power it... was it rated high enough? Perhaps some inverters just dont put out a good enough sine wave, like I said in my previous post all the motor devices I plugged in got alot louder, but they all worked fine (XP3 filter, pengiun bio wheel filter, plus a couple powerheads forget which brand I had back then).