Moving house, and bringing aquarium

Bebo stunnah

I was just looking for advice on what to do during the move. Obviously I wont be moving the tank until I can move into the new place, but I've never actually had to move the aquarium before as I've only had it since I was in my current spot.

So here it is, The tank weighs about 150kg (with the water) and its not of regular size, its more cube shaped. I live on the top floor of a 3 story building, so I'll have to empty the water out, atleast most of it anyways. There's 10 fish in it, coldwater fish, and a few live plants.. And the journey is only across town, but I'm expecting it to take about 3 hours from plugging the pump off at the current spot to being able to turn it on at the new one.
The filter is actually the entire back wall, its a Boyu tank. So the sponge is approx 30x10x10 cm, 5 bags of ceramic discs and several bio balls, and a big bag of activated carbon

So a few questions:
1) Will I have to re-cycle the tank, or will the bacteria survive? (i suppose ill have to test)
2) whats the best way to transport the fish? (bags?)
3) should i try and store as much of the water as possible, like one of the containers in a water cooler
4) any other advice?

here's what i'll have budge http://youtu.be/r0qPXyjB_cA

fungun

back when i was new to the fishkeeping i had to do a move and managed it ok. Took out most of the water (kept ~10% in tank). Put fish into largest receptacles I had with water (e.g. saucepans etc).
Managed to get tank in and out of car (am assuming you have a lift in your apt cos 3 floors of stairs will be difficult without!)
When all water was put back in I prob had the tank maybe 20% full; did not recycle and everyone seemed ok.

Right now Id prob advise to keep as much water as you can manage, but this did work fine for me back then.

Drive slowly

Bebo stunnah

fungun wrote: »

Managed to get tank in and out of car (am assuming you have a lift in your apt cos 3 floors of stairs will be difficult without!)

haha, if only! nope, just stairs im afraid! thanks for that! ill probably put them all in bags, and then into a big pot so?

Sleepy

If you don't have enoough large bottles for the water, you can buy 20l containers in B&Q reasonably enough and I believe Seahorse will rent them to you.

fungun

Bebo stunnah wrote: »

haha, if only! nope, just stairs im afraid! thanks for that! ill probably put them all in bags, and then into a big pot so?

will be difficult to carry a tank with much water in it downstairs. Oh, any put all your filter medium in the water so it stays moist; try to keep as much of the bacteria alive as possible.

Sleepy

Remove any filter wool too.. it disintegrates with the gravel movement and can take quite a while to clean out.

wobbles

Ive had to move my tropical tank quite a few times now. Should be easier since yours is cold water and you dont have to worry about losing heat.

Basically, it will be the last thing you pack, first you unpack. If you have a few days to move all the better. I got a sealable bucket from a my sister who works in a restaurant and put all the fish into that plus about 10l of water. Then i had some empty water bottles to bring as much water as possible. Id been buying 5l bottles of water to drink as i knew i could use them to transport most of the water from the tank. 6 of those and youve already got 30l to set up in the new place. I emptied the tank of all water but kept the plants/stones in there.

So long as you keep enough of the water from the tank, and keep you filter wet, during the move, you wont have to re-cycle the tank. Keep the fish covered and they wont stress as much

God forbid, something happens your tank in transit, have a back up plan in place so you dont panic. Tesco have big plastic storage boxs which will perfect for a tempory tank until you get sorted

m4r10

Just as wobbles said, except I'd take everything out of the tank while you're moving it (gravel, sand, whatever you have) as it can put unnecessary stress on the seals. As long as you keep the bacteria from the filter alive, I wouldn't worry about the bacteria from the gravel, you can even wash it while you're at it.

About the moving the water, if you live close to Clondalkin, these guys have 25l drums for €7 (I have no connection with them).

fred funk }{

Take EVERYTHING out of the tank. Tanks arent designed to be moved with any amount of weight in them at all. No water, no gravel. The silicon seals will be stressed and begin to leak.

When moving, get a large bin/bucket and fill it with aquarium water. Put the fish in with the filter and heater. Keep as much tank water as you can. Move the empty tank to its new location and put the gravel back in with all the water you saved. Then go get the bin with the fish.

Don't just put the fish straight back into the tank, you need to equalise the water temperature so the fish don't get shocked. Do this by adding a jug of water from the tank to the bin then from the bin to the tank. Do this for every few minutes and when the water is the same in both then it's safe to transfer the fish. I normally leave the light off for a while so the fish will be less stressed.

vibe666

i'll be moving my 260L juwel vision next week, so wish me luck! :eek:

the plan is to remove all the water except enough to cover the gravel, although i do plan on hoovering the gravel as i drain the tank as it needs doing anyway.

i figure that between what's left on the gravel and the filter media i'll be grand.

i'll put the fish in a 12L bucket inside a large bag i got from my local pet shop which should be big enough to keep them going during the journey (about 30 minutes, plus emptying/refilling time).

i've seen a battery powered air pump so i was thinking i might get that, but i'm not sure if its necessary given the relatively short journey.

i actually have an inverter for the car that i use for camping trips etc, so i could theoretically set them up in a full mobile aquarium if the need arose, but i imagine that would be overkill for the short journey from navan to clonsilla.

i've got a hosepipe attachment for my hot/cold mixer tap so the plan is to refill with lukewarm water mixed from the tap (adjusting the flow of hot and cold as required) to try and get as close to the original temps that my community fish are used to so i can get everything back up and running again as quickly as possible at the other end without having to rely solely on my tank heaters to bring up the temp from cold on their own as it would take too long imho.

hopefully that and some water conditioner will make it as painless for the fish as possible.

my main concern at the moment is actually my 65L backup tank which i've recently discovered is full of baby snails.

i had thought that i could temporarily move everything out of the 260L tank into the backup tank so i could move it and get it set up properly at the other end and then once it was ready, just move the fish separately the next day and transplant them back into the freshly set up 260L tank, but i'd quite like to see my baby snails make it to maturity. i know it's silly as they're not much bigger than poppy seeds at the minute, but i'm too much of a softie to condemn a baby *anything* to death.

paddy147

Never ever move a tank with water still in it.

DISASTER in the making.:eek::eek:

paddy147

fred funk }{ wrote: »

Take EVERYTHING out of the tank. Tanks arent designed to be moved with any amount of weight in them at all. No water, no gravel. The silicon seals will be stressed and begin to leak.

When moving, get a large bin/bucket and fill it with aquarium water. Put the fish in with the filter and heater. Keep as much tank water as you can. Move the empty tank to its new location and put the gravel back in with all the water you saved. Then go get the bin with the fish.

Don't just put the fish straight back into the tank, you need to equalise the water temperature so the fish don't get shocked. Do this by adding a jug of water from the tank to the bin then from the bin to the tank. Do this for every few minutes and when the water is the same in both then it's safe to transfer the fish. I normally leave the light off for a while so the fish will be less stressed.

Its not often that I agree with Fred,but he is RIGHT on this matter.

Read exactly what he has posted and heed his advice.:)

vibe666

paddy147 wrote: »

Its not often that I agree with Fred,but he is RIGHT on this matter.

Read exactly what he has posted and heed his advice.:)

ah jesus, we'll all be agreeing with each other then, whatever next! :pac:

okay, you've talked me into it and you're right, it does make sense.

i've got two 12L buckets, so i think one will do for the fish with a big pet shop fish bag in it tied off to prevent them sloshing around, and the other can be used for the wet gravel and enough water to keep the bacteria comfortable for the journey.

i also have a big square plastic storage bin that might also do the trick.

paddy147

Myself and my girlfriend had to move a large 500 litre tank a while ago......we had to move it all of about 10 feet,from one side of the room to the other side.

It was an "everything out" job and took hours to do it.

But its the only way to do it and not cause any damage to anything,and that includes plants and fish too.

fred funk }{

paddy147 wrote: »

Its not often that I agree with Fred,but he is RIGHT on this matter.

Read exactly what he has posted and heed his advice.:)

See Paddy, we do see eye to eye sometimes.

vibe666

we're like one big happy family. i think i need a hug now!

paddy147

fred funk }{ wrote: »

See Paddy, we do see eye to eye sometimes.

I know.:)

Very good advice though on the "moving aquariam/fish" thing,and its the only way to do it.

Bebo stunnah

Thanks for all the feedback... had a little setback regards the moving. Thought it was going to be a one off job, but turns out that the place I'm moving wont be ready for another week so I had to move the tank into a relatives house at the last minute!.
It weighed an absolute tonne! but I got hold of an empty container (like a water cooler) so i could use it to dump the water out. It was quite handy that the pump in the filter space is removable, so i used that to pump the water out of the tank! I went up to the pet warehouse and asked for the bags that they give you the fish in when you buy them, and they gave me 7 for free!. There is none of those stores you guys suggested here

And I placed all the filter medium (bio balls and ceramic rings) into 2 of those bags, not with the fish, and covered with water! the tanks been going for 2 days now and no problems as of yet!

Here's hoping the 2nd move goes as well as the first! atleast there's no stairs involved!!:P

vibe666

had some minor issues with mine, but nothing i couldn't get over.

i was emptying the tank and had made sure that al my plugs were disconnected except the lights so i could see what i was doing, but i'd forgotten that i'd plugged an extra water heater into another plug socket out of sight and the heater came on just in time to be half in/half out of the water and cracked, so i had to get a new one.

not the end of the world though, i just had to transplant my fish into the smaller tank (i'm guessing i won't have any baby snails left! ) and then move the big tank and set it all up the other end.

i even took the opportunity to install a bubble curtain along the length of the tank at the back and it looks pretty cool imho.

i put the substrate into two 12L buckets, with them just covered with tank water, and then bagged up the filters into another bag with some more tank water and got the tank moved and put it all together at the other end and filled it with tap water and nutrafin aqua+ conditioner and let it get up to temp and it has a small bottle of nutrafin cycle in it now for the last 24 hours, just to be on the safe side before the fish get transplanted back out from their rather cramped temporary home.

i seem to have lost two kuhli loaches somewhere along the line, either inside a tank ornament, or buried in the filters or substrate or something, but aside from that everyone is happy for now and looking forward to settling into their new home this evening.