Help! Need to empty and move my 90g ASAP! How do I do it?

[kmatysek]

Seems like a dumb question, but if anyone has any handy advice - or can point me to another discussion on this - I need a quick reply.
Our protein skimmer started dumping out water and our carpet is soaked. I'd like to move the tank so we can be sure we get the carpet under the stand completely dry.
We've been thinking about rearranging the rock placements, so here's our opportunity. But how do we do it with 90# live rock, lots of coral and 6 fish plus assorted inverts? How long can corals and fish be in buckets with or without aeration and heat? Any handy guidelines someone can point me to? None of our books helped.
I need to figure out - quickly - how many buckets and additional equipment we need. Or should I just go buy a 40 g and hope it holds everything until we get the carpet dry?

 

[kmatysek]

I'm still trying to decide if it's worth it. The problem is that the water is all underneath the cabinet (it seeped through the wood base). We've been trying to 'wick' it out with towels, but I'm worried that we may not get it all, or enough of it, that way. If we get a mold* mildew problem we'll end up having to do this anyway and replace the carpet.
So I'll put all the rock and livestock in big rubbermaid containers (where do you find a 50g ice chest?). Is all I need is a powerhead and heat? I would have thought that aeration was more important than circulation - was that what you meant? How long is everything OK like this (without light)? If this had happened on a Friday, it would have been easier, but now I have to call in sick or have them in these containers for 24-48 hours.
Thanks for all the input. I guess what I really need to know - from those of you who've done this - is how long and under what conditions (aeration, powerhead, heat) is safe?

 

[kmatysek]

Thank you all for your help. We stayed up all night to do it (to minimize the stress on the little guys). Saved the carpet, lost NO livestock (with the exception of a cool little vermetid snail we'd discovered on one of our live rocks and I just plain forgot about it when I got to the bottom of the tank). (The only other casualty was our backs - neither my husband or I could move by the time we were done.)
We used two big (50g) Rubbermaid storage units each with a heater, airstone and jet just to play it safe. I thought for sure I'd killed our hippo tang - he spent the entire time he was displaced (about 14 hours) lying on his side under a big leather coral. I guess he was playing dead (or just simply felt safer there).
It was a good experience to know what to do in the future. I've also ordered an $11 shut-off switch for our protein skimmer so this doesn't happen again!
Thanks, all!