Tank Move, Anything im Not Thinking of?

Evan West · Sep 29, 2016

So im moving back to school tomorrow with my 20g long reef tank. Ive moved my previous freshwater tank plenty of times so I have a system down but regardless I want to see if im missing anything here. So I have 4 5-gal buckets with air stones mounted in them and battery operated air pumps mounted to the side. I have 4 rocks in my tank so one for each bucket, I plan to place them each in the buckets and fill them with water to cover the corals and rock and then the pump will keep the water ariated for the bacteria in the rocks on my 2 hour drive to school. The rest of any remaining water will go in jugs. I will also be placing a battery air pump into my filter to ariate the rubble in the canister and keep that bacteria alive as well. The equipment will just come off the tank and pack away with all the supplies. I plan to keep the fish in bags in a cooler to keep them warm or I will just put them in the buckets with the rock and coral since each bucket will only have one rock and it will not be able to move in a way that can crush the fish. Not sure witch of those solutions is better. The sand will stay in the tank during the move. Once I get to school I just set it all back up and wait for the temp to come back up. I do a temp acclimation and then put everything right back in since I take my water with me the critters wont need acclimation to new water.

Anyone see anything im missing here?

KorL · Sep 29, 2016

Have to be careful for the sand fouling up the water

Playa-1 · Sep 30, 2016

I would be a bit concerned about temp with all the bubbling going on. You may very well overcool the buckets through evaporation. I would just have a plan in place if things cool down too much. All in all it sounds like you've put a lot of thought into it and have things covered.

Evan West · Sep 30, 2016

KorL said:
Have to be careful for the sand fouling up the water

I have a 1" sand bed that I deep vac weekly so it should not be a problem but thanks for the heads up!

Playa-1 said:
I would be a bit concerned about temp with all the bubbling going on. You may very well overcool the buckets through evaporation. I would just have a plan in place if things cool down too much. All in all it sounds like you've put a lot of thought into it and have things covered.

Hmmm never thought of that, the buckets do ride in my heated car tho so I think it should be okay. Kinda a rock and a hard spot situation as I have to keep the water ariated but I dont wanna cool it too much.

abecker · Sep 30, 2016

Just remember, the fish/corals take trips much longer than 2 hours in a box being shipped from one place to another.

Evan West · Sep 30, 2016

abecker said:
Just remember, the fish/corals take trips much longer than 2 hours in a box being shipped from one place to another.

Thats not what im worried about/trying to accomplish with the blubbers, its the beneficial aerobic bacteria in the rocks. They need oxygen rich water or they will have significant die off within an hour (according to my marine bio major buddy) and that would crash my cycle.