How to Move tank

polka

Member
I have a 40 f/o it is on a wooden cabinet. We will be painting the room it is in soon. How long can I leave it unplugged (If necessary) and any clue as to how to move it? Thank you for your help!!
 

rickt4du

Member
You are not going to be able to move the tank with it full it weighs appx.400lbs
You'd be taking a big chance trying to slide it out from the wall..as far as keeping it unplugged...as soon as you unplug the pumps the oxygen starts to "run out" within a few hours death comes a knockin'...I keep an extra car battery charged up and a voltage inverter from radioshack ready to go for power outages...plug in your bio filter (my penguin 330 can run for 3 days that way)...
dont really have the answer you want as far as moving the tank though...
If it was me...the tank cant move....I'd paint around it and behind as much as i could...keep some of the paint so if you ever do move the tank away from that wall you could finish the job...no one will ever know but all of us here on the bb...
rick....
....
 
M

mr. limpet

Guest
If your tank is a few inches away from the wall you can paint everything but the trim. Go to your local Home Depot and get a skinny roller they make them for painting behind toilet tanks and water heaters.
If you really need to move the tank, then I would put all of the water in a "new" trash can. I just moved 30 gallons of water from a friends reef tank to get me jump started. Use the shortage of water as your change out water when u reassemble it all.
 

thebatcave

Member
I just moved my 125 because we got new carpeting. That was a lot of work. When we painted the room earlier this year I just painted behind it the best that I could. When we moved it because of the carpeting I finished the rest of the paint job.
 
Also watch out because the paint fumes can kill your fish. When I painted my room, I had to leave all windows in house open, and huge fans sucking air away from the tank to keep the smell away as much as possible. Because the fumes are toxic, and their lungs are so small, it can easily kill them, but if you take the right percautions, they might just get a little dizzy. It would probably be worse if there was no pump to give them ozygen, it would stress them even more.
~~Megan
 

mr . salty

Active Member
#1 Fish don't have lungs. #2 most ******** paint is latex,or latex based,therefore nontoxic. Pain away and dont worry. Just be careful not to spill a bunch into the water. That will probably kill them. Sorry megan,I'm not trying to sound rude, but it wont hurt them. Unless your using Oilbased stain or paint.But not to many ******** paints have this base......STEVE
 
All I know is that my fish became very sick when I painted in my house, and I had to work double time to get them better. Burning strong scented candles by the tank can even kill your fish. (has happened to me)
I guess they could jsut be freak accidents, but I have not done well with smells and my fish.
~~Megan
 

polka

Member
Thank you so much for all of your suggestions! I will try the skinny roller, Now do I have any volunteers? hahahaha!
 
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