On the move!! Need some 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.

 

[ian]

I moved from Maryland to Florida with little trouble. Put all the fish in one 22 gallon rubbermaid with a battery operated air pump. I kept the temp controlled in the cab of the moving truck and actually kept the fish in the rubbermaid for two weeks or more while setting up the tank again. I didn't loose a thing so you should be fine.
Just do a good job acclimating them to the new tank.

 

[fireemt_us]

Thanks, the plan was to transport all the rock and sand in a large container, or several for that matter. And place all the corals and fish in as large a container and transport them. I have a 50 gallon rubber maid I was going to use. I will leave them in that and gradually swap water from that to the main tank until they are the same. Then place all of the stock in the main tank. I had planned to leave the lights off for a few days. My concern is whether or not the addition of all that rock and sand would cause any kind of cycle or spike? I planned to do several water changes but I know that corals are very fragile and sensative to water quality.

 

[ian]

Sorry but I can't help much on the corals. Remember this though. You can keep anything in that 50 gallon as long as you need. Also remember that water weighs 8 lbs a gallon so it is hard to move. I had a truck with the bed full of the rubbermaids covered with plastic then with the lids and still lost about half the water.
Good Luck! It shouldn't be too bad

 

[fireemt_us]

Thanks, I know that the container will be heavy, thats why Im going to try to use small ones. I think I can do the transport in several small tanks then combine them into the large. Then from there i will acclimate and transfer. Thanks for the help.