Huge Dilema!! Please help..

[golgi aparatus]

OK, I have a huge dilemma here. FYI, this has the potential to be a rambling post as there is not simple answer to my multitude of questions. I have a 1.5 year old 55g mixed reef tank with LPS, softies under 216 watts of T-5 lights. I love this tank just as I’m sure you guys love your own tanks! As everyone here I’m sure is aware, I would hate to have to put a price tag on the amount of time and money spent on this tank. Here is a pic of the tank in question:

Here is my situation: my wife and I have decided to sell our current house and move into another house with much more room. Our family is growing and I’m afraid we have outgrown our current house. We have just recently gotten a really good offer on our old house and the buyer is really interested in the fish tank. I had never really even considered leaving my tank, but had considered upgrading to a larger 70 or 90 gallon in my new house.
I am defiantly concerned with moving my current tank as I know this cannot be easy, but it must be possible. I am thinking that maybe I could include in the contract everything necessary for a FO tank for the buyers and taking all of the livestock and live rock. I really have a hard time just abandoning all of my corals/fish even if I get offered adequate compensation for them.
I would rather avoid setting up my new 90 gallon tank in the new house and have to begin at ground Zero. I’d much rather be able to transfer at least the live rock / sump with the biological filtration so that I would not be starting completely over in the new tank.
I would really love to open up some dialog on this as I’m sure others have had a similar experience with this type of situation. I would appreciate any input as far as whether I should just leave the entire setup if I’m given a good price for it, or input on moving all or a portion of the setup etc…

 

[abethedog]

I feel for you. I guess I would start a dialogue with the potential buyer to find out if he/she is just trying to get a free, established tank off of you because of the current market. I've only heard horror stories of people trying to sell their house. How bad do you need to move?
With that said; I'm sure you've said to yourself "if I had to do it over I would do this different."
Make the best out of it. Buy or build a house with a new and better tank in mind. Go over 100 gallons. The more water this eaiser it is to take care of. Good luck.
I've moved my 125 gallon twice in the last 6 years. Stuff dies, rocks break up, glass gets marked, you lose corals. It is hard on the livestock.

 

[jpc763]

How soon is the new house going to be ready?
If it were me, I would skip the 70g or 90g and go for the tank you want. I have a 55g and although I am not going after a 600g or something crazy like that, a 100+ would be what I upgraded to.
I would set up my new QT now and frag a little of everthing in the tank. I would then move the QT to the new house and transfer the frags into it while I cycled the big new DT.
For the livestock, I would transfer the livestock, into the new QT (you are going to need a big QT). I would work with the new owner now to pick some fish that they want and add them to the 55g tank.
As far as Live rock and sand, Leave the 55g the way it is.
I would look at it as "I am getting a new house so you are getting a new house". You can make changes that you have wanted to, but didn't because you already had the equipment.
Good luck with your decision.
One more thing. Make the new owner read some of the better Aquarist books to make sure they *really* want a tank. It looks cool, but do they know what it means to own and maintain a tank?

 

[spanko]

I just doubt that you will get what you feel the tank is worth.

 

[puffer32]

Ok so heres what i did. My 75 DT was an inwall. When we listed the house, i put it in the listing as only staying with the house if i was offered full asking price, otherwise i would remove tank and seal up the hole in the wall. Since i was asking 5,000 more then market value, I was suprised when someone actually offered full price, the buyer simply HAD to have the tank. Of course i spent alot of time showing him how to care for it since he only had FW exerience. But i was satisfied my tank would be well taken care of. Since i got the 5000, I took the money and got a 150 when we settled in the new home. We were starting over, but could pretty much buy what we really wanted this time, and thats exactly what we did!

 

[dennis210]

If it were me! I would invest in a 40 to 55 gallon frag tank. Frag the corals I realy liked.
Start them in the house you are in now and move them into the new place as seed stock for a new tank. You and I both know you'll never get a portion of what you have into it so just shoot for $100.00 per gallon or $5500.00. Take $5000.0 and run out and get yourself exactly what you want. Then when wife and family are all settled into new home you will have a project for yourself!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[danweb]

I've moved my personal tank 3 times in the last 2 years. i lost everything in my last move. but this gave me a chance to upgrade and start all over. my advice would be to think of a upgrade size tank and go 1 or 2 steps bigger (bigger is always better). if you do decide to move the tank set up multiple QT tanks ( i used rubbermaid containers to try and keep the corals and fish apart) you can also reuse these for curing new live rock or acclimating new additions to your tank. and your right there is no way to figure out how much money you have spent or what your time is worth. so putting ia price tag will be very hard to do. fraging some of the corals is a great idea and will save you quite a bit of money. and will also let you take a part of you old tank with you. please make sure the person that is buying your house is up the speed on how much work it is to keep and maintain a great looking fish tank like yours. it would be a real shame to learn that they failed and destroyed all your hard work.

 

[golgi aparatus]

Everyone, I really appreciate all of you input! I still am just overwhellmed at the thought of what I am going to do with the tank. I do like the idea of fragging the important corals to me so as to bring some of the old into my new tank. THat would be cool. I'm hesitant , like someone said, to just hand over the keys to the tank to someone that may not appreciate the work needed to maintain such a tank.
If I'm not convinced that he can maintain it, or worse that I'm not offered an adequete amount for it, I'll just have a large QT for the future. I guess I'll just do my best to make the move as smooth as possible. We are staying in the same town, so it is not a huge move.
All of this still makes me nervous!!