Getting ready to move.

[down and outman]

In the process of buying a HUD house. A nice 4 bedroom ranch with an acre of ground, built in 2001. It has a huge family room with an open kitchen. I'll be on a well, (go figure as I make drinking water for a living). We fired up the well to check it out. Works good. Tested the water, not too bad, but not good enough for the tank. Nitrates at 0.30 ppm. I picked out a sweet spot for my 90 gal tank, but of course the fun part is moving the tank.

I've kept every salt bucket I've bought, plus have a bunch of water hauling buckets. 17 buckets in all, 85 gallons. Plan on having about 30+ gallons of new water made up at the house, the rest will go into the buckets with all the livestock and rocks. Will set up some tubs to hold everything until I can get the display up and running. Plan on washing out the sand and reusing it. I've done that before. Gonna need beer and BBQ for my helpers.

The cold weather has me worried. We tried to find something in August, but no go there. So I think my biggest challenge is keeping things warm during the move. The new house is 15 minutes away, so if we move fast, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. I'll have plenty of help with my nephews, friends and all. Young bucks with lots of muscle.

The plan so far:
Day 1: Get saltwater made at the new house, set up tubs to hold livestock with spare skimmer, powerheads and heater.

Day 2: Get my help assembled. Nephew and Bro-in-law have trucks. Get all buckets ready. Start draining water into buckets, putting corals and rocks into buckets as I go. When rock and corals are out of the tank and water is low, catch fish and inverts. When tank is empty, haul everything out to the house and set them up in tubs. Come back for the tank, dig out the sand, and move the tank, stand, et al.

Sift thru the sand for worms, etc. Then wash it out. Since well water doesn't have chlorine in it. I should be good to go. Start reassembling tank. Put back sand, rocks without corals first, water, and get system running, heat up water and check for leaks. Start adding fish, corals and inverts.

Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks in advance.

 

[swfk44]

ii haven't move a tank in awhile but, i think the last time i moved mine i left just enough water to kept the sand wet. by washing the sand won't you cause a recycle of the entire system? good luck with the move, and congrats,

 

[ricksconnected]

i moved a tank last yr when ice was on the ground it was so cold. 45 minute drive. keep the fish in the truck with you.
clean the sand very well. in doing so your gonna want to reseed the sand at some point.
use as much old water as possible too. make sure you wash the sand in the ro/di water. the new stuff if possible.
i wouldnt use the well water to setup. to many things could happen that you dont know about with the water. after you get in and get settled and have had enough time to study the water over a period of time, then i would consider the water source for the tank. i would go get a couple nice sized coolers to put the fish in when you get them to the new house if not before. puting numbers of fish in close quarters will stress them out if they arent use to being so close. we want to cause them as less stress as possible. make sure you have a air bubbler on hand with a air stone.
these are just things you might want to think about, not rules, but stuff i had to do when i moved the tank last yr.

 

[ricksconnected]

swfk44;440359 wrote: ii haven't move a tank in awhile but, i think the last time i moved mine i left just enough water to kept the sand wet. by washing the sand won't you cause a recycle of the entire system? good luck with the move, and congrats,

when i moved mine my nitrates were over 120 when i set it back up. tried everything. the only way we found to lower them was washing the sand.
when you move sand you stir up all the stuff in the sand thats settled to the bottom. we used a live bacteria supplement after for about 2 weeks i think it was. prime was our friend also.

 

[fish_guy]

I have an acrylic 125 you can use to make up your water in.
If you are going to be at the Jan meeting I will bring it.
Just PM me

 

[down and outman]

There is no way we could lift the tank with 100+ lbs of sand it it, plus water. I've washed sand before, using city water. Didn't have a problem, but I let it dry out for a few days to get rid of any chlorine. With well water I won't have that issue. Takes a lot of water to really clean sand out. I can do a final rinse with 5 gals of RO water. The cooler idea sounds good for the fish. Corals too? I do have a battery operated bubbler too. I think I'll grab some of the sand to keep it live to reseed the bacteria. There's a lot of gravel in the sand I want to get out as well. They are from the DIY rocks I made. I plan on putting a few rocks in each bucket as well. Hopefully I won't have the tank down for very long.
Thanks to all.
Keep up the suggestions. I gotta think this thing thru.

 

[down and outman]

Thanks for the offer Fishguy. I'm going to use my trusty 30 gal trash can with a PVC valve I use for makeup water. And use a tub to put the corals and fish in while I set up the tank. So I got that covered.

 

[hackman72]

Expanding on what Rick said, I used well water to rinse sand for an established aquarium and had a massive cyano bloom right after that I never thought would go away.

Check with a couple of LFS for shipping boxes. They're very handy for situations like this. They'll probably hook you up with some bag for the fish and corals for a nominal charge or even free maybe.

 

[down and outman]

What I'd really like to do is get some new sand and use a couple cups of the old to seed it. Also too dang cold to be outside washing sand. Brrr! I didn't move far enough south! Maybe I'll go barebottom until I can get some new sand. I'm about tired of this sugar sand blowing into piles. Yer talking me out of fooling with it. Sounds like I'm gonna have to make a LFS run.

I think the corals on rocks would be better off placed individually in salt buckets. They are glued to my rocks and most won't fit into a baggy. A couple are small and I can use ziplocks for those. Besides, 5 gallons of water will hold the heat better.

 

[down and outman]

Waiting, waiting, waiting, to hear from the loan officer on the loan. Should be today. Then I'l know if it's a go. They wanted to do Another! appraisal. In the meantime busy trying to get everything packed. Not easy after living here for 8 years. Lot of junk to go thru.

 

[kayakatl]

I am tagging along here... I have to move my 55 in a couple weeks. I was really hoping to get some livestock after the new year, but if I am moving the tank I might as well make it even easier on myself. Your sugar sand comment is DEAD ON. With my 2 K3's I cannot position them so that my sand does not become dunes with bare bottom showing after 3 days of not moving the sand around... Grrr.....

 

[down and outman]

I have 2 K-4's and a Maxijet Mod. Both front corners are bare bottom with hills in the back. PITA. I also can see the crud about 1" beheath the surface on the sides of the tank. Gonna stink bigtime when I pull it out. I do want to sift out as many critters as I can out of it. I have a lot of tiny brittle stars and other critters in there that I want to keep, unless there's a big bristle worm under there. I can see their trails in the sand along the glass. I'm gonna keep a couple cups of it and may wash some to add volume to what sand I plan on getting. I think a new sandbed will help my tank a bunch. Checked Keen Reef's site. He has a good price on a better grade of reef sand.

 

[weaglereefer]

The Carib Sea Special Grade Sea Flor sand is good stuff. Not so big that it's a detrius trap, not so small that it gets blown around. I have probably close to 4,000gph flow in my 90 and it stays put. Also very reasonably priced.

 

[down and outman]

That's the stuff!

 

[weaglereefer]

Yup, good stuff, I have it in 3 tanks.

 

[down and outman]

Ordered Sea Flor sand from Keen reef. Done deal. Still gotta wash it, unless it's not dusty like other sand I've had.

 

[weaglereefer]

Yes, you'll still want to wash it, and when you think you're done, wash it another 5min...

 

[down and outman]

I wash in a 5 gal bucket. Stick a hose in it, and work it until it runs clear. Still too dang cold for that. Brrr!!!!

 

[down and outman]

Got some new sand from Keen Reef. Still gotta wash it, but at least it's warmer now. I think I might wash some of the old sand and put it on the bottom. I'll have to see how my time works out with the move. Counting down, we close this friday. My house looks like the backstock area of Publix, boxes everywhere.

 

[schwaggs]

Don't forget to fill some of the buckets at the begining to put your fish and inverts in. You don't want to fill buckets with water from the tank after you pulled all the rock.

When I moved, I picked up plastic storage boxes. The kind with the flip top lids. When the tank move was done, I rinsed out the boxes and used them to store stuff in... The cool thing about the storage boxes is you can fit lots of rock in them and they are stackable.