How to prepare a tank for sale?

dvlpr · Mar 2, 2020

Hi all,

Not sure if this is the right forum, so please move this post if it's irrelevant here...

I'm trying to sell my FW tank, but it's not getting many bites, so perhaps I'm doing it wrong. I know I would be better off financially just keeping it, but I really have no room to have it running, at least not till a big reno in the house and I want to concentrate on marine from now on. But until I sell it I cannot start on my build thread here - that's my agreement with my wife and there is no room for bargaining there

Those of you who actually sold their tanks, do you tear them down first or keep everything running till a buyer shows up and puts down a deposit? Mine is running and I suspect maybe that's putting people off, as there is going to be a delay while I take it down and clean, etc... On the other hand, it shows that the tank has no leaks and all equipment works. Not sure...

Any other helpful ideas would be welcome. Apart from setting the price to be ridiculously low (the tank is just over 14 months old and I'm currently selling it at 40% of the original price, so a 60% discount)

Thanks!

cvrle1 · Mar 2, 2020

It will always be easier to sell tank and everything else separately. You would need to find a buyer that would want exactly everything the same way as you have it, which is next to impossible to do if you want to sell it all together. Yes, doing it separately is more work, but in the end it can be faster, and you can actually make a bit more $ as well.

Good luck

W1ngz · Mar 2, 2020

In my experience tanks sell faster cleaned and broken down no matter what size.

Dempsey941 · Mar 2, 2020

IMO if you break it down it will sell faster. Record the date you broke everything down and if/when the buyer shows up have the tank filled up half way just to show it is still sealed.

dvlpr · Mar 2, 2020

Thanks for the replies! So I am doing it all wrong

Will start taking it down then - I'll donate all fish back to my LFS and he can decide what to do with them.

cvrle1 · Mar 2, 2020

dvlpr said:
Thanks for the replies! So I am doing it all wrong Will start taking it down then - I'll donate all fish back to my LFS and he can decide what to do with them.

I wouldnt donate to LFS, simply because he will turn around, sell it and make profit from your goodwill. If you want to donate, donate to school, aquarium or something similar. If you have to go LFS route, get him to buy them from you, or at least give you store credit for future purchases.

Dempsey941 · Mar 2, 2020

cvrle1 said:
I wouldnt donate to LFS, simply because he will turn around, sell it and make profit from your goodwill. If you want to donate, donate to school, aquarium or something similar. If you have to go LFS route, get him to buy them from you, or at least give you store credit for future purchases.

Yea turn your old hobby into a new sweet frag for your new hobby.

dvlpr · Mar 2, 2020

cvrle1 said:
I wouldnt donate to LFS, simply because he will turn around, sell it and make profit from your goodwill. If you want to donate, donate to school, aquarium or something similar. If you have to go LFS route, get him to buy them from you, or at least give you store credit for future purchases.

Yeah, no, he's a great guy and has helped me heaps during my FW journey and will be helping me with my next steps too, so I don't mind. I doubt he'll sell them, but even if he does, I'm ok with that. And I do have some store credit already plus a good discount always