Moving House - bringing fishtanks

paul71

Hi folks, long shot, but wondering if anyone near Maynooth has suitable containers I can borrow for moving water. Anything that has never come into contact with soap, detergent ect. would be great. I can collect and return them within 2 days, move date is 8th October.

Sleepy

Can't help myself but I know Seahorse Aquariums will rent big 20l containers when you buy water from them so might be able to work something out for you?

fungun

ive a container I use for changing water....prob holds 15/20l, dont know really, am local enough. PM me if you like.

Ive moved with a fish tank before though and what I did was took the fish out in to bags/saucepans etc and then kept as much water in the tank as I could, keeping the top attached to stop splashing as I drove.....is this not an option?

godtabh

how big is your tank?

You could bag your fish and filters and sand and thought should have sufficient amount of good stuff to kick the new tank set up straight away.

or as sleepy said head down to seahorse. I've gotten some good stuff off them for doing this.

paul71

I have 1 125l tank and a fluval edge which is about 25l. I am planning to move the smaller tank with most of the water still in it, and was originally planning to leave some water in the larger tank but was stongly advised to remove all the water and substrat as there is a danger of breaking the seals on the tank by moving it with anything in it.

I have a 10l container which i will fill with tank water to move the substrat and filter in to keep the bacteria alive, but was advised I need to move at least 60% of the water too.

godtabh

paul71 wrote: »

I have 1 125l tank and a fluval edge which is about 25l. I am planning to move the smaller tank with most of the water still in it, and was originally planning to leave some water in the larger tank but was stongly advised to remove all the water and substrat as there is a danger of breaking the seals on the tank by moving it with anything in it.

I have a 10l container which i will fill with tank water to move the substrat and filter in to keep the bacteria alive, but was advised I need to move at least 60% of the water too.

How long will it take you to move? Ideally you should keep as much water as possible but at the very very minium keep the substrate and filter seeded with bacteria and you should be more or less ok

paul71

godtabh wrote: »

How long will it take you to move? Ideally you should keep as much water as possible but at the very very minium keep the substrate and filter seeded with bacteria and you should be more or less ok

The move is only about 7 miles, so I plan to have the whole thing completed in about 1 hour from the time I turn off the filter and put it into a container of tank water to the time I turn it back on in its new location.

I already have the move planned, I just need containers enough to carry about 90L.

Plan is as follows.

1. Syphon about 15 to 20 litres into my water change bucket. Add stress coat, remove fish with net and put into this bucket.

2. Syphon water into 2nd container, turn filter off and put into this container, remove substrate and add to this container heater and plants too.

3. Syphon all remaining water into as many containers as I can borrow.

4. Empty tank of all remaining water.

5. Bring everything to the cars, move to house, setup tank, firsty substrate, then water, then filter, then plants, allow water to settle for 10 minutes and add fish.

Hopefully the amount of water lost will only amount to slightly more than 1 waterchange.

fungun

i moved a rio180 before with about 25% of the water still in it and it was fine, drove slowly though!!!

Roselm

Hi!

So I also moved recently and brought my 90l tank with me.

http://www.seahorseaquariums.com/store/ gave me a large box, lots of plastic bags, elastic bands and polystyrene which fitted into the box. This way I could put one fish/coral etc in each bag and then they all went in the box which kept them warm as I moved.

As someone else said Seahorse aquariums have water containers. You could borrow/rent 6-7 of these and off you go.I had my own (which I got from them previously). Wouldn't have tried to do it with buckets etc.

Unfortunately I don't have the containers any longer though so can't help you out there.

Good luck!

Sleepy

fungun wrote: »

i moved a rio180 before with about 25% of the water still in it and it was fine, drove slowly though!!!

And I've moved that same Rio 180 with a similar level of water and all substrate (and amazingly a clown loach hidden in the filter!) 50km from fungun's place to my own. Again, I took it very handy but the tank seems no worse for wear.

fred funk }{

DO NOT MOVE THE TANK WITH WATER IN IT!

It puts huge stress on the joints and can weaken them. In time these joints could give way. The tank isn't designed to take those stresses.

I have moved tanks loads of times over the years. First thing to do is get a large bin/bucket (depending on amount of fish) and siphon water from the tank into it. Then, put the heater and filter into the bucket and then the fish. This will take the pressure off you to move the tank quickly as the fish as perfectly fine in there for as long as you need.

Completely remove everything from the tank including all the gravel, put the gravel into bags or buckets. Save as much water as you can but don't get to hung up on saving all the water, even a third of the water is fine.

Set up the tank in its new location with gravel and saved water. Add some new fresh water with stress coat. Bring the temp of the water up to the correct temp with kettles of water. With the bucket/bin of fish beside the tank in its new location, with a jug, take a jug of water from the tank and empty it into the bin and then do the opposite, take a jug of water from the bin and empty it into the tank. Do that for approx half an hour, that will mix both waters from the bin and tank to equalise the water parameters so the fish wont be shocked when put into the tank.

paul71

fred funk }{ wrote: »

With the bucket/bin of fish beside the tank in its new location, with a jug, take a jug of water from the tank and empty it into the bin and then do the opposite, take a jug of water from the bin and empty it into the tank. Do that for approx half an hour, that will mix both waters from the bin and tank to equalise the water parameters so the fish wont be shocked when put into the tank.

Excellent advice, thank you.