Suggestions for Moving a Tank

[Nate92]

Hello,

In two months, I will be moving from my current apartment into my first house (about an hour away). I currently have an 80G tank (with pre-drilled 40G sump). I am struggling to determine whether I should move the tank with me or if I should sell all of its components (including fish, coral, equipment, etc.) and start a new tank from scratch. If I were to move the tank with me, would anyone be able to offer any suggestions as to how I might go about doing so? It seems like it could be a fairly involved task...

Thank you very much!


-Nate

 

[cvrle1]

Start with this, it has lots of info and potential ways to do it, and things you should think about and plan

Moving Time? My Advice to You.

Welcome! Hello all, I am what I would consider to be somewhat of an expert on moving a reef tank. I say this because due to the way my college works I move every 3 months......gasp! yes yes I know bring on the nay sayers! "That's bad for your reef they need stability!".......and yes your right...

www.reef2reef.com

One thing that you will need to decide for yourself is if you want to use sand that you have currently, use new one or a mixture of 2. It is a contentious point lol

 

[Albertan22]

I moved a 120 gallon with 40 gallon sump between houses about 45 minutes away. I honestly don’t think that moving the tank would be any more work than parting it out and selling it. The worst part is breaking it down, putting it back together is much easier.

I would recommend that you start accumulating pails. You will want to take as much water with you as you can. Try to keep your rock in water while you transport it to prevent a bunch of die off and a new cycle.

I’d also recommend buying a big rubbermade tote and set it up as a temporary tank for your livestock at your new house. This will give you time to properly install and re-plumb your DT, get it aquascaped, put new sand in if you’re doing that and let the cloudy water settle. Everything will be happy in a big rubbermade for a few days, or even weeks if need be if you can jerry rig a way to get your light fixture over it.

Another thing I did was get an inverter to run an air pump in my car and set up a manifold to bubble into all the pails with livestock since I had a lot of fish in few pails. Today I’d probably use a battery operated air pump.

 

[Nate92]

Start with this, it has lots of info and potential ways to do it, and things you should think about and plan

Moving Time? My Advice to You.

Welcome! Hello all, I am what I would consider to be somewhat of an expert on moving a reef tank. I say this because due to the way my college works I move every 3 months......gasp! yes yes I know bring on the nay sayers! "That's bad for your reef they need stability!".......and yes your right...

www.reef2reef.com

One thing that you will need to decide for yourself is if you want to use sand that you have currently, use new one or a mixture of 2. It is a contentious point lol

Thank you!

 

[Nate92]

I moved a 120 gallon with 40 gallon sump between houses about 45 minutes away. I honestly don’t think that moving the tank would be any more work than parting it out and selling it. The worst part is breaking it down, putting it back together is much easier.

I would recommend that you start accumulating pails. You will want to take as much water with you as you can. Try to keep your rock in water while you transport it to prevent a bunch of die off and a new cycle.

I’d also recommend buying a big rubbermade tote and set it up as a temporary tank for your livestock at your new house. This will give you time to properly install and re-plumb your DT, get it aquascaped, put new sand in if you’re doing that and let the cloudy water settle. Everything will be happy in a big rubbermade for a few days, or even weeks if need be if you can jerry rig a way to get your light fixture over it.

Another thing I did was get an inverter to run an air pump in my car and set up a manifold to bubble into all the pails with livestock since I had a lot of fish in few pails. Today I’d probably use a battery operated air pump.

Thank you!

 

[Mical]

Yea it's not as stressful as you think. I did it earlier last year, I moved a 120 & a 65 gal from a 3 story townhome to our new house, roughly 45 mins away. I had ZERO help so all fish, water, coral, nems, etc were moved in 5 gal buckets. My plan was get new live sand, take a cupfull of old sand from each tank to seed, take as much old water as possible, have new RODI water and mixed saltwater at new location and added Bio Spira to both takes at new home. After all was said & done, I only lost 1 tuxedo urchin and had no "mini cycle".