razoreqx
Active Member
Recently I moved from Lancaster to Columbus Ohio. My wife had decided after a year of marriage that driving from Lancaster to Columbus everyday was too much for her to handle. Funny thing is, I had been doing the same commute for seven years before I met her.
In total I had about eight hundred gallons worth of fish tanks to move in our house. Though the move was only forty-five minute drive, it took over six hours to move the first tank, my seventy-five gallon reef display.
My wife collects freshwater and I have about five hundred gallons of saltwater.
The freshwater tanks and saltwater fish only tanks were the least of my concern, even though these tanks make up for about ninety percent of our tanks. It was the hundred and fifty gallons of reef I had to move that scared me. Over the last year I have collected about five hundred dollars in corals and estimate there worth over one thousand dollars now, which I am sure is a small collection to some of you.
I had figured that it would be easiest to move the tanks before anything else. I wanted to get everything setup where It needed to go and running before the end of the weekend when the movers were showing up.
That Friday I rented a Uhaul. I then called a good friend of mine for advice. Tom has been collecting saltwater since he was about ten years old. I had no idea he would have such a wealth of information on moving aquariums, and just how much time he probably saved me by talking to him.
I had to laugh on the phone while talking to Tom, as he volunteered to help me on the move, as long as he didn’t have to help move the boxes and furniture.
Obviously many of his acquaintances have asked for help when moving their fish.
Anyway with Toms experience we successfully moved all my tanks with no loss of livestock or coral.
I thought I would list some of the things to consider before you move your tank. I hope this helps with the move.
Containers
In order to save half of your water volume from each tank you plan to move, you might need several Rubbermaid or other containers to transport. We used five forty-gallon Rubbermaid’s to move my tanks but we transported one tank per trip.
Equipment
I found I forgot a few key items before we left for Columbus the first time, so I recommend making a checklist before you head out. Your going to have fish out of the tank in buckets, and you’ll find yourself wanting to hurry. A list will come in handy.
1.New Salt. Chances are you will need to mix salt on the fly while your setting up the new tank so be ready.
2.Hydrometer or Refractometer to measure salinity.
3.RO line adaptor. If you attach your RO/DI unit to a sink like I do make sure you grab the little adaptor. I forgot mine and had to use tap water on the first trip.
4.A Battery backup is a great eighty-dollar investment if you want to arrogate your water and maintain water temperature during transport.
5.A bucket lid or food plate is another nice item to prevent unnecessary stir of your substrate when adding water to the tank at the new location. Just place the lid or plate on top of the substrate, and aim the pour at the center of the plate.
6.Heaters
7.Low flow Power head. Remember you just want to lightly arrogate the water while in containers, which contain livestock or coral.
8.Misc. tubing and hoses.
The break down
1.Setup rubber containers to fill with saltwater from your display tank.
2.Carefully unplug and remove the power heads, heaters, and lighting from the top of the display tank. Give yourself plenty of room to work.
3.Drain Water- Fill your rubber containers half way with saltwater from your display tank.
4.In the first container I placed all the equipment I didn’t need for water arrogation and heating. This prevented any drying out of propellers and other moving parts and hopefully prevented any equipment failures at the new house.
5.Corals. Next we carefully removed colonies of coral, which were not attached to large pieces of live rock. Make sure to give each piece of coral plenty of room inside the rubber container and that the water level completely covers all your coral. Once all the colonies were removed from the tank I moved the containers out of our way. I placed the battery backup near the containers and placed a heater into each tub.
6.Once the corals were out of the display we removed all the live rock and placed into containers half full of saltwater. Make sure no critters are hiding inside your live rock, as this would not be a fun or safe ride for them in a bucket full of heavy rock.
7.Once the display tank was free of live rock and other hiding places it was time to remove the livestock. The rest of the saltwater containers were used for the livestock to allow them plenty of room for swimming during transport.
8.Once all the livestock was removed it was time to drain the remainder of water from the display. This water was discarded.
9.The water was drained down to half the depth of the substrate. You need to remember that even though you could carry the tank with twenty percent of the water still in the tank this is a huge strain on the seams of the tank and you don’t want to risk weakening or rupturing the tank.
Load em up!
1.Now it was time to load up the vehicles we were using to transport the corals, livestock, LR and equipment. Heaters and small power heads were placed into tanks with corals and livestock, and powered up by the battery backup or UPS.
2.NOTE: Round buckets splash more than square containers.
At the new house
1.First a dinner plate was placed inside the tank on top of the substrate.
2.Then water was drained back into the tank as we removed each piece of LR. NOTE: no coral or livestock is placed in the tank at this time.
3.Once all the water was placed back in the tank we topped off the display tank with fresh mixed salt water.
4.Then we applied the final aquascaping and equipment placing, which included the overflow and pluming to the refugium.
5.Once we had the tank up and running and the water started to clear (about one hour) we dripped the coral and livestock, acclimating them to the display tank.
After that it was time to head down south to get our next tank. We packed up all the buckets and containers. That reef took about six hours to move from start to finish. The fish only tanks took about three hours each. All in all it took about two days to move all our tanks.
The new house is great and we love it!
Hope this document helps any of you getting ready to move a tank. If I can help answer questions feel free to drop me an email at kesselj@greenapple.com
Razor
In total I had about eight hundred gallons worth of fish tanks to move in our house. Though the move was only forty-five minute drive, it took over six hours to move the first tank, my seventy-five gallon reef display.
My wife collects freshwater and I have about five hundred gallons of saltwater.
The freshwater tanks and saltwater fish only tanks were the least of my concern, even though these tanks make up for about ninety percent of our tanks. It was the hundred and fifty gallons of reef I had to move that scared me. Over the last year I have collected about five hundred dollars in corals and estimate there worth over one thousand dollars now, which I am sure is a small collection to some of you.
I had figured that it would be easiest to move the tanks before anything else. I wanted to get everything setup where It needed to go and running before the end of the weekend when the movers were showing up.
That Friday I rented a Uhaul. I then called a good friend of mine for advice. Tom has been collecting saltwater since he was about ten years old. I had no idea he would have such a wealth of information on moving aquariums, and just how much time he probably saved me by talking to him.
I had to laugh on the phone while talking to Tom, as he volunteered to help me on the move, as long as he didn’t have to help move the boxes and furniture.
Obviously many of his acquaintances have asked for help when moving their fish.
Anyway with Toms experience we successfully moved all my tanks with no loss of livestock or coral.
I thought I would list some of the things to consider before you move your tank. I hope this helps with the move.
Containers
In order to save half of your water volume from each tank you plan to move, you might need several Rubbermaid or other containers to transport. We used five forty-gallon Rubbermaid’s to move my tanks but we transported one tank per trip.
Equipment
I found I forgot a few key items before we left for Columbus the first time, so I recommend making a checklist before you head out. Your going to have fish out of the tank in buckets, and you’ll find yourself wanting to hurry. A list will come in handy.
1.New Salt. Chances are you will need to mix salt on the fly while your setting up the new tank so be ready.
2.Hydrometer or Refractometer to measure salinity.
3.RO line adaptor. If you attach your RO/DI unit to a sink like I do make sure you grab the little adaptor. I forgot mine and had to use tap water on the first trip.
4.A Battery backup is a great eighty-dollar investment if you want to arrogate your water and maintain water temperature during transport.
5.A bucket lid or food plate is another nice item to prevent unnecessary stir of your substrate when adding water to the tank at the new location. Just place the lid or plate on top of the substrate, and aim the pour at the center of the plate.
6.Heaters
7.Low flow Power head. Remember you just want to lightly arrogate the water while in containers, which contain livestock or coral.
8.Misc. tubing and hoses.
The break down
1.Setup rubber containers to fill with saltwater from your display tank.
2.Carefully unplug and remove the power heads, heaters, and lighting from the top of the display tank. Give yourself plenty of room to work.
3.Drain Water- Fill your rubber containers half way with saltwater from your display tank.
4.In the first container I placed all the equipment I didn’t need for water arrogation and heating. This prevented any drying out of propellers and other moving parts and hopefully prevented any equipment failures at the new house.
5.Corals. Next we carefully removed colonies of coral, which were not attached to large pieces of live rock. Make sure to give each piece of coral plenty of room inside the rubber container and that the water level completely covers all your coral. Once all the colonies were removed from the tank I moved the containers out of our way. I placed the battery backup near the containers and placed a heater into each tub.
6.Once the corals were out of the display we removed all the live rock and placed into containers half full of saltwater. Make sure no critters are hiding inside your live rock, as this would not be a fun or safe ride for them in a bucket full of heavy rock.
7.Once the display tank was free of live rock and other hiding places it was time to remove the livestock. The rest of the saltwater containers were used for the livestock to allow them plenty of room for swimming during transport.
8.Once all the livestock was removed it was time to drain the remainder of water from the display. This water was discarded.
9.The water was drained down to half the depth of the substrate. You need to remember that even though you could carry the tank with twenty percent of the water still in the tank this is a huge strain on the seams of the tank and you don’t want to risk weakening or rupturing the tank.
Load em up!
1.Now it was time to load up the vehicles we were using to transport the corals, livestock, LR and equipment. Heaters and small power heads were placed into tanks with corals and livestock, and powered up by the battery backup or UPS.
2.NOTE: Round buckets splash more than square containers.
At the new house
1.First a dinner plate was placed inside the tank on top of the substrate.
2.Then water was drained back into the tank as we removed each piece of LR. NOTE: no coral or livestock is placed in the tank at this time.
3.Once all the water was placed back in the tank we topped off the display tank with fresh mixed salt water.
4.Then we applied the final aquascaping and equipment placing, which included the overflow and pluming to the refugium.
5.Once we had the tank up and running and the water started to clear (about one hour) we dripped the coral and livestock, acclimating them to the display tank.
After that it was time to head down south to get our next tank. We packed up all the buckets and containers. That reef took about six hours to move from start to finish. The fish only tanks took about three hours each. All in all it took about two days to move all our tanks.
The new house is great and we love it!
Hope this document helps any of you getting ready to move a tank. If I can help answer questions feel free to drop me an email at kesselj@greenapple.com
Razor
