NatureNut Posted October 20, 2007 Report Share Posted October 20, 2007 A friend of mine decided to get out of the SW hobby so I'm getting her 20g setup. She's got a skimmer, powerhead, heater, dual light system, live rock and a gramma and damselfish. I'll be moving it in the next couple of weeks. The trip is about an 90 minutes or so. Any advice on moving it? She said when she got it, she and the person she got it from drained off most of the water into buckets and put the LR in it, then left the two fish in a few inches of water and moved them in the tank. They put the tank in a plastic container on wheels to stabilize it for transport (I'm trusting the wheels were stopped for driving :P). My intuition says bag/bucket the fish for the trip rather than leaving them in the tank, but would it be less stressful for them if I do leave them in? We have a short flight of stairs to contend with when they arrive here, as well as the longish drive. I'm also interested in any advice people have. I've read through some of the messages in this forum, and I'll dig through more over the next days. This is happening rather suddenly. I've had some lessons from her and will do everything I can to get educated in a hurry. I always wanted to go salt, but never figured it would happen because of the expense of getting started. I know maintenance costs are higher than FW, but when the initial equipment etc is free, I just can't pass it up! The only stipulation my hubby put on it is that one of the existing tanks had to go. Bye Bye bowfront! I didn't have it long, but it's beautifully established. Lucky I found friends who wants to get into fish, so they were happy to take it off my hands. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iceturf Posted October 24, 2007 Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 A friend of mine decided to get out of the SW hobby so I'm getting her 20g setup. She's got a skimmer, powerhead, heater, dual light system, live rock and a gramma and damselfish. I'll be moving it in the next couple of weeks. The trip is about an 90 minutes or so. Any advice on moving it? She said when she got it, she and the person she got it from drained off most of the water into buckets and put the LR in it, then left the two fish in a few inches of water and moved them in the tank. They put the tank in a plastic container on wheels to stabilize it for transport (I'm trusting the wheels were stopped for driving :P). My intuition says bag/bucket the fish for the trip rather than leaving them in the tank, but would it be less stressful for them if I do leave them in? We have a short flight of stairs to contend with when they arrive here, as well as the longish drive.I'm also interested in any advice people have. I've read through some of the messages in this forum, and I'll dig through more over the next days. This is happening rather suddenly. I've had some lessons from her and will do everything I can to get educated in a hurry. I always wanted to go salt, but never figured it would happen because of the expense of getting started. I know maintenance costs are higher than FW, but when the initial equipment etc is free, I just can't pass it up! The only stipulation my hubby put on it is that one of the existing tanks had to go. Bye Bye bowfront! I didn't have it long, but it's beautifully established. Lucky I found friends who wants to get into fish, so they were happy to take it off my hands. There is a chance that you will loose the fish, but since its not a new tank, if the skimmer and other stuff was working for a while before you move the tank, it should be fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NatureNut Posted October 24, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 Thanks! The tank has been running for over 4 years with the fish that are in there. No livestock has been added in the past 2 years. I'll be replacing the actual tank because there's a bit of salt creep along a couple of seams. Just makes me too nervous, even though a consultant told my friend it shouldn't be a problem. The existing skimmer has been running for a few months. I'll move all the aragonite into the new tank, using all the live rock and critters, skimmer, heater etc. I thought to add an aquaclear filter as well, because I never like to have just one filter on a tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NatureNut Posted October 24, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 24, 2007 Also... Does anyone have advice on moving critters that are attached to the glass? They'll have to be moved or die when we switch the tank Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Murminator Posted October 26, 2007 Report Share Posted October 26, 2007 Just scrap them off they will be fine. As for moving take as much of the water as possible, but take the water out first be fore anything so it is nice and clean then remove the rock and corals and toss the sand bed out and buy some new livesand unless your going barebottomed. The sandbed can carry alot of nasties in it when it is stirred up releasing nitrates and gas pockets that can crash a tank. HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharuq1 Posted October 29, 2007 Report Share Posted October 29, 2007 I would put everything in buckets with lids, personally. (course my gramma has a death wish and jumps out of everything with no lid--yours may be slightly less insane, lol) If the live rock is covered with water you "should" have less die off. The fish, just put them in a bag or bucket with lots of air, and no rocks or anything that could fall on them. They would probably be fine in the tank, but you'd still have to move them out when you put all your rock and whatnot back in and this will mess any water that is in there quite a bit. It also couldn't hurt to stick on a hob filter for the first night or two with filter floss, because there may be a lot of detritus floating around off the LR. You're probably on top of this one: Have a bucket at home with pre-prepared sw mixed (with powerhead and heater) so you will be able to do a quick water change if you notice any spikes in your levels. This can also be a good place to stick fish temporarily if you are waiting for the tank to clear. Just don't forget to acclimate them first. Good luck on the move!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NatureNut Posted October 29, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 29, 2007 (edited) All great advice, but I've moved them before I got to read the last bit. LOL Fortunately all seems well so far. I learned that Murminator's explanations in the PM I got tonight were bang on too... too bad I hadn't read them before I got the tank home. ANYHOW... so far so good. We moved the live rock in buckets covered with water from the tank. The fish moved in the old tank with a couple of low rocks (couldn't tip/slide) to hide near and a few inches of water. We got them here, set up the new tank on the stand, put in some new aragonite, and some water, then moved the fish to a bucket with some rock and water from the old tank. Then I scooped out some old sand and added it and OOOOHHHH boy what a cloud of gucky silty mess. LOL THIS is why Murminator doesn't move old sand. LOL I ended up just adding a cm or so on top of the new and stopping. I did a 'rinse' by making up SW and pouring it in then taking it right out. Seemed to work alright. There's still some guck, but I have everything up and running, including an HOB with filter floss. I'll monitor all parameters carefully and be prepared to do an H2O change if needed. The skimmer isn't really working as a skimmer, though. My friend said the instructions were only in foreign languages, and she was never able to get it just right. So I'm going to figure it out tonight/tomorrow I hope, with the wonders of the internet. I'm finding this quite challenging. I usually like to research things to death before I get into them so I hopefully prevent death... but my friend really needed the tank gone. She's providing almost 24/7 phone support, but I'm sure glad to have this site as well. I'm hooked already... it's amazing how much life is in that tank! My favourite moment so far was my 6 year old son saying "The kitchen smells like the beach!" while I was moving everything around. MMMmmmm... the sweet smell of beach! Edited October 29, 2007 by NatureNut Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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