Moving a 40gal DT

[jmike50]

Hi everyone,
I need to move my 40gal DT onto a new stand? How hard is it? It is a FOWLR tank. I was just going to put out all the water except for about 6 to 12 inches and save some of the origianl water and go ahead and do a partical WC. I will be try off all HOB filters heater, skimmer and etc. before moving. It does not have a sump. Tank will only have to be moved maybe for or five feet. Thank you in advance for all the information...MIKE:fish:

 

[brisco15]

Yeah dude if your doing it solo your gonna wanna take more water out. I'm moving and will retain 50 % of water from both my DT's I know just from the move ill have a spike so I'm gonna have an extra 300 gallons ready to do some water changes over the following days.

 

[jmike50]

No I will not do this by myself....I have some strong able bodies around when needed....LOL

 

[brisco15]

Ok then definitely movable with that much water

 

[jdavid]

It can be pretty heavy even with just sand, but definitely moveable

Brisco15;860067 wrote: Yeah dude if your doing it solo your gonna wanna take more water out. I'm moving and will retain 50 % of water from both my DT's I know just from the move ill have a spike so I'm gonna have an extra 300 gallons ready to do some water changes over the following days.

A PH spike?

 

[brisco15]

No nitrate normally anytime I do a tank move and sand gets stirred I tend to get heavy nitrate spike. My move is literally to a house not 5 ft away so there will be less sloshing for him. Thankfully my 125 is bare bottom it's just my 7 year old DT I'm worried about.

 

[rdnelson]

If it were me, I would move water and livestock to a holding container, empty the tank tossing the sand out. Then I would move the tank empty and install new sand. You can reuse as much water as you can but you will need some fresh mixed water as well. Acclimate the fish just as you would a new arrival before putting them back in the tank. That will give all livestock the best chance of survival.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[jdavid]

OH okay I see
I wonder if anaerobic bacteria (that convert nitrate to nitrogen) die off severely when the sand is stirred up and exposed to oxygen rich water

I have a couple more questions but I feel like I'm getting close to thread jack lol.

JMike50- recently moved a 30 cube with several inches of wet sand in the bottom. It was easy with two people, also, the cube has 1/2 inch thick glass, considerably thicker than the glass on my 40 breeder which probably makes the tanks alone a similar weight, if the 30 cube isn't even heavier.

in a 40 b or 40 long (both 17" in height) 12" of water would still be about 2/3 of the total gallonage. 40 gallons of water is about 332 lbs. (if my calculations are correct)

so leaving 6" of water would be about 110 lbs more than the weight of the tank and sand, and leaving 12" of water would be about 221 lbs more.

That's a lot of weight in water. If it's a 40 long I would think it would be much safer to move it with all the water drained.

Edit:

rdnelson99;860264 wrote: If it were me, I would move water and livestock to a holding container, empty the tank tossing the sand out. Then I would move the tank empty and install new sand. You can reuse as much water as you can but you will need some fresh mixed water as well. Acclimate the fish just as you would a new arrival before putting them back in the tank. That will give all livestock the best chance of survival.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I don't understand why new sand?

 

[rdnelson]

IMHO the junk built up in the sand will release into the water no matter what. Say you take all water out but leave the sand. It may not get stirred up during the move but will when adding rock and new water. Now, all that nasty stuff is in your water settling on corals and passing through the gills of the fish.

Can it be done other ways? Sure. But why risk it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[jdavid]

OK jmike50 please feel free to interject with your next question because I am about to take this subject a step further and I don't want to completely jack your thread.

I was abt to move abt 40 lbs of sand that has been sitting wet from a tank breakdown into my 40 breeder because the sand looks so good. I have a very similar situation going on. Just set up a 40 breeder, not drilled, and Got some really good looking sand from JimmyStephens )usually I wouldn't use used live sand, but this sand is VERY clean. Probably due to the 12 turbo snails that were in the tank. Here is the thing.. Without biofiltration (bare bottom frag tank) what is the point in a cycle?

So if I was to have fish, of course I would add rock as well, and let the tank run until the initial cycle is completed. But there is no way to really "cycle" a barebottom frag tank so I would just be relying on WC. To alleviate this problem, I was considering using the sand. Of course, eventually, the stuff in the sand would cause the tank to enter a cycle, but I was under the impression that it would be okay to add the livestock (corals) because there would be no excess ammonia caused from the fish, and I would be able to keep up with the corals by doing WC.

It seems like brisco has the solution to jmike keeping his sand and me using the sand that I have already, which is having water on hand to perform waterchanges. also, in an emergency, it is okay to overdose seachem prime to detoxify nitrate, giving you a few days to get it out via WC.

Edit: fish can tolerate nitrate, but corals do not. I would think a decent sandbed would be a really beneficial thing to a frag tank, giving the anaerobic bacteria somewhere to grow to convert nitrate into harmless nitrogen.

 

[brisco15]

There is a seachem product stability as well that helps balance and prevent the spike. My 125 is bare bottom and spiked hard the initial move no fish even made the original move and still sat in the 80 ppm range after move

 

[jmike50]

So if I go with what Rich is sayingsave about 80% of my original water have new water made to go in also...could I leave it bare bottom or would that cause all sorts of spikes and maybe have to recyle the whole tank? I can't leave fish in a holding tub for that long. I want to make this a one day move and have it go as smooth has possible.

No one is hijacking my post...all info on this is going to help everyone...thank you

 

[jef4y]

Personally with as short of a distance that you are moving it, I'd do what you plan. Drain down as low as you can, move it and refill. Likely less stress on everything vice capture, holding tank, refill/acclimate.

It is a gamble any way you go. If you do move it with water in it, I'd drain down as much as I possibly could, even if it exposed corals to air for a bit. I'd also have a THICK piece of wood to slide the tank onto (perhaps braced underneath with a frame even). Slide the tank on, move it, slide it off.

The gamble is in having a rock fall & shatter the tank, having the water slosh and splitting a seam, twisting the tank and splitting a seam.

Just be careful. It's do-able in my opinion.

 

[jmike50]

Thanks Jeff...If it wasn't for the wife wanting to move it..I would not do it...but she said she would by the nice stand for it...LOL

 

[rdnelson]

Old sand can be rinsed well and reused. Of course it would no longer be live sand but will become live in time. Keep in mind the corals have a bio load too. Not as much as fish but still it will cause ammonia and everything else that fish will. Just slower.

A bare bottom frag tank can have live rock or matrix put in the sump. That would be your area for bacteria to grow and do its job.

As for doing it in one day no problem. I went from a 35 to a 125 in one day. The 125 went in the same spot the 35 was in. Look up my build thread if you would like to see how I did it. It can be found under "Rich's 125". Or watch jef4ry's time lapse vid of his upgrade. Very cool vid.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[jmike50]

Thanks Guys!

 

[jdavid]

JeF4y;860293 wrote: Personally with as short of a distance that you are moving it, I'd do what you plan. Drain down as low as you can, move it and refill. Likely less stress on everything vice capture, holding tank, refill/acclimate.

It is a gamble any way you go. If you do move it with water in it, I'd drain down as much as I possibly could, even if it exposed corals to air for a bit. I'd also have a THICK piece of wood to slide the tank onto (perhaps braced underneath with a frame even). Slide the tank on, move it, slide it off.

The gamble is in having a rock fall & shatter the tank, having the water slosh and splitting a seam, twisting the tank and splitting a seam.

Just be careful. It's do-able in my opinion.

This. if it were me, I'd have 8 5-gallon buckets on hand (or 2 20g rubbermaids, or atleast 1 30g trash can [doesnt have to be a brute get one of the red ones from ace hardware or similar)

I would move all the rocks into the buckets, trash can, rubbermaid, whatever. then start siphoning water into the same containers. I would thing a re-stack of the rocks would be inevitable, but since jmike says this is a FOWLR, corals are not of concern.

Once your down to sand, move the tank. You probably don't have over 50 lbs of sand. I don't think this will stress the middle of the tank to breaking. the rock scape tumbling and breaking the glass is much more likely, so get those out first. Bracing the tank during the move like Jef4y said is certainly not a bad idea, but again, I don't think the weight of the sand would be a problem.

Then stack your rocks again and pump the water back into the tank. I say pump rather than pour for a reason- because you'll have a sandstorm and release all the nasties back in to the water.
edit: you can use a plate or just position the hose over the rocks to keep the sandbed from getting stirred up too much.
now you have all of our 2 cents.