Moving with tank

[lonbrat]

Hello! I haven't been on here in a while, but now I'm back looking for some advice.

I'm moving about 30 mins from my current residence in about two weeks, I have a 55 gal. "Reef" tank. It has a purple pseudochromis, a percula clown, a yellow tail damsel, and a watchman goby (he's a white one, not sure of species)
Along with two bubble tip nems, some small rock anemones, and a few zoas. (And hermits)

I have a second 55 gal. I can bring and get ready, but how should I do this without causing all my fish, and nems to die?
Thanks!

[thegrun]

I would not reuse the sand, it will contain a lot of trapped detritus that if released could start a new cycle, killing off all your livestock. Start fresh with dry sand. Be sure to wash the sand well before using it. To wash the sand place 5 pounds or so at a time in a 5 gallon bucket. Use a garden hose at full flow to agitate the sand. The finer grains of sand will overflow the top of the bucket, leaving the larger grains behind. Continue to agitate the water until it runs clear. I would not use "live" sand as it can contain more dead than live organisms and has the potential to start a new cycle (and cost more to purchase since you are paying for water). Try to reuse as much clean water from the old system as possible to lessen the shock of new water chemistry on your livestock. Once the water from the old tank starts to get murky from stirred up detritus, don't reuse that water. If possible have plenty of new pre-made and preheated saltwater on hand at the new house to make up for the lost water, if not make it up at your old house and move it with you. I would plan on pre-making 50% of your display tank's volume and have it ready for use. 5 gallon buckets with lids are your best friend for a tank move. Anything larger becomes very heavy to move, although for longer moves ice chests work well at maintaining water temperatures. You can use bubble wrap to help keep your rock with corals attached from being smashed against the sides of the buckets during transport. Start by filling three buckets 1/3 with water from the tank and then add the rock from the system to one of the buckets. Continue filling buckets first with water, then rock until you have removed all the rock. Save a couple of half full buckets of clean water from the tank for the fish. Once all the rock has been removed, the fish should be easy to catch. Some fish will burrow into the sand to hide so if you come up short on your fish count you may need to sift through the sand to find the missing fish. Once you have everything back at your new home and the tank in place, first set up your rock. Try to minimize the amount of time the rock is out of the water. If aquascaping the rock takes you awhile, pour some of the saltwater from the old set-up on the rock to keep it wet. Once the rock is set fill the tank with all the old water and whatever new water is necessary. You can just dump the fish directly from the buckets into the new tank to prevent injuring the fish or adding stress to the fish by netting them. Then start circulating the water, get the heaters running and the rest of the equipment. Tank moves take much longer than one would first suspect. Plan on a very long day. Best of luck and keep us posted with your results! If you want to set up the second tank at your new home you could do that but only fill it half way with new saltwater. Once you get your fish, rock and old saltwater to your new house, aquascape, add the old water and match temperatures before adding the fish.

[billdogg]

what he said.

And FWIW - your white watchman is a female YWG.
hth

[anthonys51]

i got 2 30 gallons tubes from home depo, one i put the fish in one i put the rocks in and coral. making sure to pack the corals in little jugs with holes so they wouldnt touch. dont reuse sand. i would use new live sand. who really wants to wash all that sand to save 20-30 bucks. not me. put the rock and water back into the tank. put the fish and water back into the tank done easy. i moved 4 weeks ago and did this. was easy and didnt lose a fish or go though a mini cycle. even start adding new corals a dew days later.

[lonbrat]

Thank you all! This stuff will help out a bunch!

I was planning on using new sand, could I possibly use some of my old to seed the new stuff though? (Like a few cups ) I have tons of pods and it's sad to see them go lol, but I don't want to cause a huge problem with old sand either

I won't need a heater at this time of year in nc. The house stays at about 75-78f.while we're not there.

What should I do with hair algae rocks? Bring them or let them dry? And would it be a bad idea to add a lawnmower blenny at this time? (Right after tank is set up again) since I've been meaning to get another, but didnt have a good time to try introducing a new fish.

Thanks!

PS. I looked female yellow watchman gobies, and it does look exactly like that, however I think I bought it as a diamond goby...oh well!

[thegrun]

Yes, seeding the new sand with a cup or two of your old sand is a good idea. A rock with a lot of hair algae is likely to have absorbed a fair amount of phosphates, you may want to acid wash the rock to both kill the algae and eat off the surface layer of rock where the phosphates would be trapped. If you are going to add any fish I would run them through a quarantine before adding them to your system. This would also allow the bacteria to get back up to full strength. There is likely going to be some die off of bacteria during the move and also some reduction due to removing the old sand bed, so it's generally not a great time to increase your bio-load.

[lonbrat]

Originally Posted by thegrun

Yes, seeding the new sand with a cup or two of your old sand is a good idea. A rock with a lot of hair algae is likely to have absorbed a fair amount of phosphates, you may want to acid wash the rock to both kill the algae and eat off the surface layer of rock where the phosphates would be trapped. If you are going to add any fish I would run them through a quarantine before adding them to your system. This would also allow the bacteria to get back up to full strength. There is likely going to be some die off of bacteria during the move and also some reduction due to removing the old sand bed, so it's generally not a great time to increase your bio-load.

Okay thanks! Ill just remove the rock that has hair algae, it's only one rock about the size of a tennis ball. I have grape caulerpa that I believe killed off most the hair algae, by using excess nutrients. Ill just replace the rock with some dry rock or something ^^

[lacybiker2000]

My current (old) 30 gal tank is in East Texas and my new 75 gal will be in Houston. Currently I travel to Houston ever other Thursday and go back home on Monday morning. I was hoping to start scooping some sand out and transferring it with my rocks to the new tank without causing a major upset on the old. Eventually just leaving the fish and a few rocks for them to hide in in the old tank for the final move.

OOPS, well there goes my idea of reusing the sand from my 30 gal when I set up my 75. I was confused on how I would be able to get it out of the old tank anyway. UGH, one more expense.

[JohnnyHildo]

i just went through a move 2 weeks ago with my 120g and didn't lose any of my fish or corals. to get there i used a fairly simple appraoch:
- 3 days before moving anything i made 65 gallons of 1.025 saltwater that i kept heated and turning at the new residence (i thought it'd be excessive and it ended up being just enough)
- 100% new sand
- i bought 2 - 65 gallon tubs, 15 pails with lids and 5 rubbermade tubs for my live rock and filled each pail with enough water to cover a few inches above each piece.
when removing the water i used the other 65 gallon tub to drain into and stopped as soon as i had to lift any of the base rocks. from that point forward i discarded the remaining water as agitating the sand was inevitable and would taint my clean water.
after everything was moved in the challenge was to do things quickly but properly aside from one thing. normally i would add rock followed by sand and then my water, in this case i couldn't as i have corals on my rock and want to keep them and my rock living.
the last preservation step i took was adding ampoules of prodibio to help the system cope with the loss of all the biologically functional substrate.
it was a busy days work that seemed to spill over into the days following setting things up as you like them but overall went very smooth.
best of luck!
* forgot to mention it but make sure you have access to additional prepared RO water as you have to plan for the worst

[thegrun]

Thanks for the update Johnny, I'm glad your move went well.