The Puffer Forum

hi im moving my tank, my gf and i decided its time to part ways and i need to move my big tank, problem is ill be moving about an hour away from current location, my plan is to rubber maid tub all the live rock, and perhaps the fish in there own?. id bag them but its going to take me a while to mix the salt and get everything back to normal. has anyone done a big move before can you give me any pointers?.. my other dilemma is my heaters are inline so just how long do i have before my fish / rock suffer...

Sorry to hear that about your ex-gf

I moved my reef about 1.5 hours away a number of years ago.

The best case would be to have a new tank setup and waiting, then move about 2/3s of the rock and bring a good ammount of water from the current tank and let the tank mature for a few days. Then finalize the move. But that is expensive. I moved my tank all in one day. So if a new tank isnt possible do this:

Try and bring as much clean water as you can from the current tank as you can, 5gallon buckets are cheap and easy for this. Estimate how much you can bring and then at the new place have a fresh bucket of saltwater mixing the day before the move for the remainder of the water. The fish just put them in 5g buckets, they should be fine, unless there big fish, might think rubbermaid then. Rock can be transported dry, no need to submerge, unless there are corals on it. If its going to take a long time to setup the tank put a heater and airstone/powerhead in the containers if they have fish or coral in them. Heaters are cheap, just get a ebo jager, ~$25 (dont you have an extra to heat water change water?)

i just recently moved, not an hour away, but it still sucked. i have a 75, i got (3) 45 gallon rubber maid containers. 1 for live rock and a good amount of water, 1 for sand/rest of rock and good amount of water and the 3rd i had for most of the water and all fish. the move was only like 15 mins away and all those containers were extremely heavy but me and my roommate were able to handle it. got done moving at 12:30-1ish with the tank being the very last thing. started setting everything back up immediately and everything was up and running normally by like 8 with little breaks here and there.

if you let your rock dry out you will kill all your bacteria built up, making you have to re-cure your rock. i think you would be ok with the rock just submerged. you might have some die off but at least you would be able to put it right back in the tank after you set everything back up without much of a problem. how cold is the weather where your moving from and to? if its spring/summer you wouldnt have to worry about temp drops, and if its too hot you could just freeze water overnight and stick them in the containers if you stop to check out the fish and its too hot.

since the move is going to be like an hour, i would say at least get something big for the fish to be in that way theres more water to dilute any waste they produce in that time. there will be water movement in the containers from the vehicle moving so maybe having a little bit of rock that wont shift around would be an ok idea so your at least supplying a little nitrifying bacteria to the container? someone else want to put in on that thought?

jus85411 wrote:if you let your rock dry out you will kill all your bacteria built up

One hour sitting in a bucket should be fine. Yes submerged is better, but its easier to move that way.

jus85411 wrote:since the move is going to be like an hour, i would say at least get something big for the fish to be in that way theres more water to dilute any waste they produce in that time. there will be water movement in the containers from the vehicle moving so maybe having a little bit of rock that wont shift around would be an ok idea so your at least supplying a little nitrifying bacteria to the container? someone else want to put in on that thought?

I forgot to add to skip feeding the fish the day before the move so they dont poop the bucket. With live rock in the bucket you run the risk of the fish getting scratched, even if the rock is secure the fish still can get banged around.

Think about what this stuff goes through to get to the store, alot more stressful than a 1 hour move.

yeah i forgot they suggest not to feed the day before a move because of the waste in travel containers/bags. if you dont feed i wouldnt put the rock in there, maybe just like a sponge from the filter or something like that.

I helped my friend moved ones.

keeping steady temperature was his main concern

only had to move puffers... 8 hours total drive time.

I moved a couple times keeping everything under water in 5g buckets w/lids.

move went well, 10 hrs total. took 2 trips with the truck to get rock plus 160 gallons of water to new home.then a 3rd for tank. put the fish in really big foam coolers drained last 40 gallons unhooked and sat around for 3 hrs waiting for my hands to come pick tank off ledge. the triggers were extremely aggressive towards each other being confined in such a small space i was very nervous. but anyways got tank set up refilled with water i had.. the temp dropped about 15 degrees but since my salinity was back at 1.025 i just added hot salt water and was good to go, thanks for all your input
at least at there new location I will enjoy them more, (work).
now i just need to rebuild my kitchen bar ,,, damn sledge hammer..

DarkStorm wrote:move went well, 10 hrs total. took 2 trips with the truck to get rock plus 160 gallons of water to new home.then a 3rd for tank. put the fish in really big foam coolers drained last 40 gallons unhooked and sat around for 3 hrs waiting for my hands to come pick tank off ledge. the triggers were extremely aggressive towards each other being confined in such a small space i was very nervous. but anyways got tank set up refilled with water i had.. the temp dropped about 15 degrees but since my salinity was back at 1.025 i just added hot salt water and was good to go, thanks for all your input
at least at there new location I will enjoy them more, (work).
now i just need to rebuild my kitchen bar ,,, damn sledge hammer..

Cool, moves are always stressful, on people and fish. Good luck!