On the Move!! Need a little help?

[fireemt_us]

OK so I am buying the contents of a fellow fish watchers reef tank and would like to know the best route to take. I have an already established 300 gallon tank that has very little in it and want to transfer his stock to it. This is what he has.
80 lbs of live rock. Premium Fiji. Mostly covered in purple coraline algea.
20 lbs of live sand.
1 large yellow tang
2 yellow tail damsels
1 blue damsel
1 green chromis
2 blue fin damsels (1 male 1 female)
1 green/red medium brain coral
2 small leather trees
2 cabbage leathers
1 frogspawn several branch offs
3 rocks with different pylops
1 rock with 14 mushrooms
1 rock with 4 bullseye mushrooms
1 serpant tiger stripe sea star
1 sand sifting star
1 left handed hermit crab
several dwarf reef crabs and snails
Hes about three hours away from me, So there is a little of travel time involved. Any help would be great. This is my first time attempting something like this and my concerns lye in the stock safety. Thanks.

 

[dburr]

Easy, IMO, take the damsels to the LFS for credit. (unless you like the SOB's ) Bag the corals, they should be fine, bag each one seperatly and put them in a cooler. The fish I would also put them in a big cooler with bags. The big tang could be tricky. If you don't have a bag big enough, put him in a bucket with a top. 3 hours will be fine for the trip in that.
HTH

 

[fireemt_us]

Thanks, The trip will likely actually be about 6 hours, but none the less. I feel that I willl fare well, I just wasnt sure about the corals. Also I was wondering if I should be concerned about the rock and or sand creating a spike or mini cycle. I know that the corals are sensative to water quality. Thanks again for your help.

 

[dburr]

Ahh, yes.
The rocks keep wet and they will be fine.
The sand, well when disturbed it will cause you a cycle in the new home. I have done this 2 times(moved tanks w/ sand)and have experienced 3 day cycles. So, if you can house the corals and fish in a clean plastic trash can with a light over it for a few days, this will do. After the cycle, your good to go.
Does this help? Any more ?'s

 

[fireemt_us]

Yes, This helps greatly thank you. I think thats all the questions that I had.

 

[msd2]

Personally unless you really need it I would leave the sand out and just toss it except for a small amount that was not distrubed much during the extraction/move. I would say if anything is going to cause a mini cycle the ls woudl be the one. Since its going to be all stirred up anyway its really not going to be of great value for awhile, so why take the chacne.
I also agree trade in the damsels to the store, when you want to get them out of your tank it will be torture!