Help moving my tank

[raccoon]

Well my cousin/roommate desided that he didnt need to pay his 1/2 of the rent this month to his parents for our house and we are both getting kicked out! It really sucks b/c i dont want to move, and b/c i finally got my tank going and now i have to move it.
If i find another roommate within the next 20 days i dont have to move.
But i would like to get ideas/help on how to move my 75 gal tank...
I have about 80+ lbs of live rock. plus sand as my base.
My live stock is:
angle queen, kole tang, 2 engineer gobies, 7 green chromis, orange tail damsel, clownfish, bicolor blenny, 6 line wrasse, 1 cleaner shrimp, 2 anemones, 2 feather dusters, some snails, and a lots of hermit crabs.
can u guys plz help me and let me know the easiest, fastest, and safest for my fish to live and be less stressed out, i also heard that its best to keep as much water from my tank now as possable.. plz help

 

[mmcheeto]

Dont worry

Its not that bad:joy:
We recently moved my 90gal tank and I did take about 3 hrs but nothing died. Perchase 3 30gal tubs with lids. Any larger and you and any friend cant lift it when full. The rest is easy
Start siphoning water in to your first tub. AS you fill put your LR in it till its about 4 inch from full. Then repeat to the second and third tubs. Always hang on to your current water. Dont waste a drop. This water is allready balanced and your fish are used to it. Put 1 power head in each tub and let them sit wile you put your sand bottom or substrate in 5 gal buckets. Any bigger and its a 2 person lugging. Then move your tank and gear to the truck. During all this you should get a few pices of large tuperwear with lids and put you fish in them. Make sure the larger fish get there own so tehy dont stress as bad. Do the same with any coral and as many critters as you can get your hands on. Then move it all to a truck.
Once in the new home put it all back together. Put sand in first . Use a spare pump to pump water from tubs to tank. Put LR in wile tank is filling and WHALAH. Your done.
Make sure you have about 15Gal of premixed water handy. Id you dont spill anything your gonna want to do 10 gal waterchange sence everything will be nasty and stired up. Make sure you have the lights off so as not to stress anyone out. . Keep plenty of towels handy and a few tools for plumbing.
Anyways thats how we did it. Hope that helps.

 

[raccoon]

Thanks a lot for your help. that seems to be not so hard when u have the big tubs in mind, i like how u put the liverock in the water to keep it wet that way. Im going to dedicate a whole day to just moving the tank!
What is the easiest way to catch the fish, b/c i seem to have lots of trouble with that!, but im sure i might have to take out the rock first and then nothing will get in the way

 

[spline9]

I bought my tank from a co-worker who moved out of state and couldnt take the tank with him. We did pretty much the same thing but I had the LR moved dry in a giant cooler. Everything acclimated just perfectly (fish, snails, starfish, and the urchin).
As for your catching fish issue... My guess is that youd want to drain some of the water and pull the LR out, that might make catching the fish a little easier.

 

[sal713]

let me know if you need a hand. I'm in Spring Hill

 

[mmcheeto]

Sorry for not replying faster

When we moved I inspected every rock I took out for fish or critters then quickly placed it in the tubs. I let all but enuff water drain to keap the fish swimming. With no rocks and little water catching the fish was a breez. Kinda like scooping in shallow water.
Just be sure to put as many as you can in there own container. so they dont get so upset they take it out on each outher

.

 

[raccoon]

:yes:
I want to thank everyone that replied and gave me thier help and ideas. I might have found a roommate and should find out sometime this weekend if they are going to live with me, if they are the tank does not have to move:joy:
If the dont then im going to have to move back home at least for now:nope:

 

[codytx]

I am going to be moving in a month or so too and was very interested in this thread. But I have a question. Moving the sand like that doesn't cause problems? I was thinking off laying a couple of towels over the sand and keeping it in the tank.

 

[mmcheeto]

The ideal solution would be not to move the sand at all and keep the water lvl 1/2 inch above. If you have a large tank this cant be done without several people or in some cases a machine.
I wish I could have not moved my sand cause the result ends up in a mini cycle. It shouldnt hurt anything in the tank but you will have some decay for a week or so and a interesting algie bloom that im fighting myself.
As for using a damp towel. It would be up to someone who has used that mothod before to chime in and tell us if it worked or not. It really seams like a coin toss to me. Better than open air though.:happy: