Moving reef tank across the room

stanleo · Jan 14, 2014

I need some advice. Right now my 55gl reef tank is in the dinning area of our apartment. The way my apartment is laid out there is no way to arrange the furniture so we can view it while relaxing at home. I would like to move it to a spot where we can watch it while sitting in the living room relaxing. Should I even do this? This tank is finally healthy (I think) and I am worried I am going to screw it up.

If I do this I have a plan. I have enough buckets to save the majority of the water. I am going to remove the fish and the corals and most of the live rock so it's lighter and the rest won't move around while moving the tank. I want to leave the urchin, clam, crabs, snails and sea hare in there while it is moved. It's only going to move about 20 feet or so. I am going to do this during my normal 20gl weekly water change. I don't have a sump or anything, just two canister filters and a protein skimmer. This is only going to take less than 2 hours and I have help.

I would appreciate any advice and help you could give me. Should I remove the inverts as well? If I do, should I drip acclimate them to the tank after I set it back up in the new spot? Does my plan sound like it would work? Should I take this risk at all? I hate not watching the tank when I am sitting in the living room.

Thank you

SeahorseKeeper · Jan 14, 2014

How long has the tank been setup?

stanleo · Jan 14, 2014

8 months ago I tore it down, scrubbed everything and set it all back up with new water. Before that it was poorly taken care of by my husband and was not healthy at all, it looked terrible. It has taken me this long to get it healthy and it's starting to look like a beautiful reef tank.

dman612 · Jan 14, 2014

just recently purchased an already established 45gallon tank from a guy on craigslist this past weekend and everything easily survived a 45min tare down and 45 drive in NY weather-youll be fine, may take a few days for everything to settle and open up.

Just drain most the tank into buckets, pop in fishes, corals and rock-each in their own bucket so not to damage. Inverts like hermits and snails will be fine left in the bottom of the tank if its just across the room. if you have expensive shrimps or what not bucket them for safety. Get 2/3 strong people and you can move the tank easily even with some water in it.

no drip needed if you keep them in same water.

advice-syphon/pump water back in, dont dump buckets youll stir everything in the sand bed up.

but def worth the few hrs of work for better enjoyment

J062682l · Jan 14, 2014

When I moved mine once I had to drain most of the water and it took myself and 2 others to move. But that was 1 month in. After 8 months it might make u cycle again

Tradewinds · Jan 14, 2014

Prefect time for an upgrade. :yo: (Just kidding)

I think it would be worth moving as you will enjoy the tank more in it's new location.

How much sand, if any, is in the tank?

Can the tank and stand be slid across the floor or do you plan on lifting it?

If it were me, I think I would completely empty the tank to avoid putting any stress on the tank.

rjcranor · Jan 15, 2014

I save most of the water into buckets and transfer rock into bucket. I leave a few inches of water and fish in the tank. Move tank and put everything back in.

GHill762 · Jan 15, 2014

drain it down most of the way and use "moving men" (you know, those as-seen-on-tv plastic dish-shaped thingamabobs you put under heavy stuff to move it).. you should be able to move it all by your self.. those are the best as-seen-on-tv item of all time, they're pretty legit..

it shouldn't bother anything if you move quickly, most coral can stay out of water for a little while and be fine, you can splash water on them if you are concerned.. or just put them in the buckets..

PaulKreider · Jan 15, 2014

Drain It down and push It, 5-10 minutes wont kill much of anything, an leave 3-4 inches of water for the fish. You'l be fine, its just like a water change, plenty of my corals get exposed during a large WC.

MSD60178 · Jan 15, 2014

When I moved I had a 65gal mixed reef and what I did was drain most of the water into buckets, rubermaid bins ect. And place all corals rock and such in them and then took all fish into buckets and left about an inch of water about the sand bed and moved the tank from one house to anther, then setting it back up I mixed up about 35gal of new water and slowly filled the tank with new and old water then place all rocks back in even ones with corals attached and then added fish back in and never lost anything. Now I had help to move everything and did it all at once as to not try to keep the temps same.

MSD60178 · Jan 15, 2014

Now I was told to throw old sand away but I did not want to spend 100 bucks to get new sand so I thought as long as it stayed under water and didn't get mixed up to much it would be fine and like I said I didn't lose anything but then again maybe I just lucky

gtbarsi · Jan 15, 2014

A couple of things I learned when I moved my tank recently.

Large Rope buckets are great for holding Live Rock, fish, a power head, and heater. Remember to clean the bucket before you do anything, I used some aquarium safe glass cleaner and a wash cloth to clean the bucket. Rinse it and then wash it with RO/DI and vinegar, then a final RO/DI rinse. Let it air dry.

On the morning of the move:
First I siphoned off enough water to fill the bucket 1/2 way. Then I removed all live Rock taking my time to arrange it in the bucket to offer a LOT of hiding spaces for my fish. Then I moved the power head, and heater in to the rope bucket. I siphoned more water in to the bucket till I was happy with the water level in the bucket. Next I Siphoned, all but 1 inch of water out of the tank, to other buckets, and caught all of my fish depositing them in to the rope bucket. I pumped all the water I could out of my sump, putting my fuge macro algae in to one of the water buckets. Lastly picked out every member of my CUC that I could spot putting them in to the life support rope bucket.

Then I was able to get everything moved.

I missed one thing in my preparation and that was power. The new location for my tank did not have a GFI outlet, I had to go get one and then I found out the old outlet was not wired well and ended up spending 4 hours before it would pass it's self test. After that the stand was moved in to final position, leveled, and then the tank was moved back on top. I added 10 gallons of fresh mixed salt water I had made up the night before and started transferring my buckets of water into the tank.

Here I ran in to another issue, I had not thought about the potential heat loss of the water in the buckets, and I only had 1 large heater. By the time I had all of the water not in the rope bucket life support system in to my DT, it was cold! I moved my small heater and power head (for salt mixing) in to the DT, and hooked up my sump, and added my skimmer, and return pump back in. At this point is was quite late in the day and the water was still too cold to consider adding any rock or livestock to the DT. I had to leave it this way overnight with the thermostat in the room set to 78.

The next morning the DT water was still not up to temp, so I had to go and get another heater and add it to the DT. This got things moving and when the water was within 1 degree of 78 I started arranging my live rock in to the DT. When I was done the DT was too clouded up so I put a couple pieces of rock back in to the life support bucket and waited for it to settle out. Once it did a couple hours later I was able to use a drip line to accumulate the life support bucket to the DT. When the bucket got close to full, I transferred 1/2 the water back to the DT. I did this a couple of times with the heater that had been in the bucket off. Then I was able to transfer everything else in to my tank, top off the sump and get everything running as normal.

From my experience I would stress the following:
Trippe check your new location (do not forget about the power)
Have plenty of extra water storage, enough for your entire system
Have fresh mixed salt water on hand
Have an extra heater and power head (they do not have to be high quality just enough to get the DT going again).
Insure your livestock has a full life support system. It will take much longer than you expect!

One side effect of the move was a hair algae bloom, I suspect there was a bit of nutrients in the sand bed that got stirred up during the move. Additionally I wonder about possible CUC death in the sand bead since the DT had gotten fairly cold. I did not find any evidence of this but I would not be surprised if my pod population crashed. I was told that had I replaced my sand bed this probably would not have happened.