Questions about moving a tank cross state (after Premier Aquatics bailed on us)

[HighTide]

Hey folks.

My husband (@Reefer-Madness ) and I will be moving from Canton to Augusta at the end of the month and am wondering if anyone in the club has moved a reef tank that far before or had any advice on getting everything from point A to point B.
We searched around for a moving service and went with Premier Aquatics however they haven't responded to any of our e-mails or returned any of our calls in the three weeks since we initially called them to set up our move. Today, we finally got ahold of the employee in their service department that we initially spoke to. Just two weeks before our move, they doubled the price they quoted us initially because according to them, they hadn't actually bothered to look at any of the pictures of the tank we've e-mailed them over the past three weeks and just realized today that it would have been more work than they thought. Needless to say, I'm pretty burned on premier aquatics right now and scrambling to come up with a plan.

As of right now the plan is to rent a u-haul van so we can at least try to control temp in the vehicle and pack as many individual rocks, corals, and fish into buckets as we can. I don't have battery powered air pumps but I wonder if that will create an issue with ammonia. Considering fish and coral get shipped in bags overnight, I'm hoping that a three hour trip in a bucket won't be too bad. Would leaving an inch or two of water at the bottom of the tank help keep the substrate or should we dump and start over with all new sand? Any advice or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks guys!

 

[chuck]

with the fish you definately need air stones if they are in containers. coral should be ok if you and you add oxygen to the bags. As far as substrates i think it will be fine. Im not surprised premier bailed on you. Ive been going i there for years and these days cant seem to get what i need anymore. Message @chemaholic hes in Augusta he might can help

 

[chuck]

Best of luck with the move

 

[KrisDeitz]

Ive moved dozens of tanks, If possible Set up a horse trough at the new house. Bring livestock first. than tank.

 

[HighTide]

with the fish you definately need air stones if they are in containers. coral should be ok if you and you add oxygen to the bags. As far as substrates i think it will be fine. Im not surprised premier bailed on you. Ive been going i there for years and these days cant seem to get what i need anymore. Message @chemaholic hes in Augusta he might can help

Thank you Chuck, I will definitely get an air stone for the fish, I appreciate the advice!

 

[hiimsean]

Are you planning on breaking down and moving and setting back up in one day?

What size tank? If you can, I’d find a 100g Rubbermaid, set it up at your new place with new water. Make a trip with all live stock and rock to keep in the Rubbermaid. Then move the tank and setup at a leisurely pace.

 

[HighTide]

Thank you for the advice @hiimsean
It’s a fifty gallon mixed reef. We hope to do it all in one day.

 

[JAC]

I've done it lots of times myself, the best advice I can give is plan and Don't let your self get stressed out. The sea critters are tougher than we give them credit. The previous advice is all supper good too. Remember to save as much of your water as you can, because the temperature and parameters will all match, so restarting will work well.

 

[TTTony]

I moved my 100 gallon mix reef over 800 miles to Georgia and everything lived !
I just traveled on a warm day had a curtain up in the back of my SUV and kept the heat on 77, and the air conditioner up front for me . the livestock was in three large Rubbermaid‘s . I bought 120 V transformer connected to my battery and ran an extension cord and had a couple MP 10 circulating water
Then I had to wait three days for the house to get painted then set the tank up I actually got bulkheads from Premier reef. Just have plenty of water available, if possible at the new house
do not use any of the old sand , just get new sand with existing live rock,

 

[Reefer-Madness]

We made it! Thanks for the advice folks!

We moved the tank 3 hours across GA to our new home in Augusta. It was a rough ride and I'm sore all over but we managed to get it here and set up in one piece.

Using 4 big totes from Home Depot we filled them each about half way with all of the tank water plus some new clean salt water, all of the rocks, and all of our livestock. We didn't use any sort of heater but we honestly couldn't have picked a better day to move the tank. It was 77 degrees out and I keep the tank at 78. Aside from that we just used two battery powered air pumps with four airstones to keep some kind of oxygenation going. Probably not the best practice, but we also decided to save the substrate and moved it in tank with just a little bit of water to keep it wet. We rented a Penske cargo van, loaded up, and hit the road.

Everything is kind of angry at me right now but so far no losses aside from a bit of coral that was encrusted to the back wall. Even some of those look like they’ll make a recovery and i kept frags of the coral just in case. I draped a wet towel over the back of the tank to try to keep them from drying out which probably saved the ones that made the trip. I'm honestly surprised at how well most of the coral did with the move.

There was a slight alk and calcium swing. (about .5 alk and 10 calcium) but nothing too bad.

The tank looks a bit different now with the rocks stacked up this way but I'm pretty happy with it. I managed to free up a bit more rock for coral and everything is stacked a bit higher up now.

 

[RadiatedReef]

Your “kind of angry” tank looks better than my supposedly happy tank! I’m glad this went smoothly!

 

[chuck]

me too im so glad it worked out congrats

 

[chuck]

im so glad you kept substrate and rock

 

[Reefer-Madness]

Thanks guys. Same here @chuck. It would have been a pain to replace it. Checking my nutrients and everything has been as usual. No spikes or anything.

 

[chuck]

I told u. I hated all the opinions. Its really simple. The good thing is you just got so much knowledge u can share. Without the begativity. You witnessed it 1st hand

 

[chemaholic]

Hey folks.

My husband (@Reefer-Madness ) and I will be moving from Canton to Augusta at the end of the month and am wondering if anyone in the club has moved a reef tank that far before or had any advice on getting everything from point A to point B.
We searched around for a moving service and went with Premier Aquatics however they haven't responded to any of our e-mails or returned any of our calls in the three weeks since we initially called them to set up our move. Today, we finally got ahold of the employee in their service department that we initially spoke to. Just two weeks before our move, they doubled the price they quoted us initially because according to them, they hadn't actually bothered to look at any of the pictures of the tank we've e-mailed them over the past three weeks and just realized today that it would have been more work than they thought. Needless to say, I'm pretty burned on premier aquatics right now and scrambling to come up with a plan.

As of right now the plan is to rent a u-haul van so we can at least try to control temp in the vehicle and pack as many individual rocks, corals, and fish into buckets as we can. I don't have battery powered air pumps but I wonder if that will create an issue with ammonia. Considering fish and coral get shipped in bags overnight, I'm hoping that a three hour trip in a bucket won't be too bad. Would leaving an inch or two of water at the bottom of the tank help keep the substrate or should we dump and start over with all new sand? Any advice or pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks guys!

My current DT was moved from Cumming to Augusta a year ago. It was an established tank with all the fixin's. It was not nearly as challenging as I thought it would be. We moved the entire setup (120g tank, stand, rocks, livestock, skimmer, etc.) in our minivan in one trip.

Here is my advice.

Use the tank to hold the sand and rock and anything else you can put in it. When I moved our tank, I left all the sand in the tank and all the rocks that had no corals on it. I put the skimmer, pumps, powerheads, and any other piece of wet gear in the tank. Doing this saves a ton of space.

All of the corals were put into Ziplock bags with some water in them and we put them into heavy duty plastic tubs along with the rocks that had coral on them. The fish were done the same way. Bagged up and put into the tub. Pop as many of the corals as you can off of the rock and bag them.

Since we were in a climate controlled space, we just used the van AC/heat to keep things around the right temp.

When we arrived we moved the fish and corals into temperature controlled 5 gallon buckets to chill while we setup the tank. Once the stand, sump and tank were ready to go we started making water. We used tap water (combo of hot and cold to get the temp as close as possible) and Prime for the first fill.

As we filled the tank and sump we replaced the rocks in the tank. We did not get all picky about where. The priority was to just get it all back in there. Later we worked on the aquascaping.

Once the water was in the tank and sump we fired up the powerheads and pumps and let things recirculate for a bit. We got the skimmer and UV going immediately too. We added a 4oz bottle of FritzZyme 900 all at once to help boost the biofilm.

We probably let things recirculate for 30 minutes or so and then added the fish and corals back in.

 

[civics14]

My current DT was moved from Cumming to Augusta a year ago. It was an established tank with all the fixin's. It was not nearly as challenging as I thought it would be. We moved the entire setup (120g tank, stand, rocks, livestock, skimmer, etc.) in our minivan in one trip.

Here is my advice.

Use the tank to hold the sand and rock and anything else you can put in it. When I moved our tank, I left all the sand in the tank and all the rocks that had no corals on it. I put the skimmer, pumps, powerheads, and any other piece of wet gear in the tank. Doing this saves a ton of space.

All of the corals were put into Ziplock bags with some water in them and we put them into heavy duty plastic tubs along with the rocks that had coral on them. The fish were done the same way. Bagged up and put into the tub. Pop as many of the corals as you can off of the rock and bag them.

Since we were in a climate controlled space, we just used the van AC/heat to keep things around the right temp.

When we arrived we moved the fish and corals into temperature controlled 5 gallon buckets to chill while we setup the tank. Once the stand, sump and tank were ready to go we started making water. We used tap water (combo of hot and cold to get the temp as close as possible) and Prime for the first fill.

As we filled the tank and sump we replaced the rocks in the tank. We did not get all picky about where. The priority was to just get it all back in there. Later we worked on the aquascaping.

Once the water was in the tank and sump we fired up the powerheads and pumps and let things recirculate for a bit. We got the skimmer and UV going immediately too. We added a 4oz bottle of FritzZyme 900 all at once to help boost the biofilm.

We probably let things recirculate for 30 minutes or so and then added the fish and corals back in.

Bro... you are so late. LOL. Look at post #10, they area already done.

 

[chemaholic]

lol I never look at the dates on posts. I prefer to work without a net.

 

[chemaholic]

We made it! Thanks for the advice folks!

We moved the tank 3 hours across GA to our new home in Augusta. It was a rough ride and I'm sore all over but we managed to get it here and set up in one piece.

Using 4 big totes from Home Depot we filled them each about half way with all of the tank water plus some new clean salt water, all of the rocks, and all of our livestock. We didn't use any sort of heater but we honestly couldn't have picked a better day to move the tank. It was 77 degrees out and I keep the tank at 78. Aside from that we just used two battery powered air pumps with four airstones to keep some kind of oxygenation going. Probably not the best practice, but we also decided to save the substrate and moved it in tank with just a little bit of water to keep it wet. We rented a Penske cargo van, loaded up, and hit the road.

Everything is kind of angry at me right now but so far no losses aside from a bit of coral that was encrusted to the back wall. Even some of those look like they’ll make a recovery and i kept frags of the coral just in case. I draped a wet towel over the back of the tank to try to keep them from drying out which probably saved the ones that made the trip. I'm honestly surprised at how well most of the coral did with the move.

There was a slight alk and calcium swing. (about .5 alk and 10 calcium) but nothing too bad.

The tank looks a bit different now with the rocks stacked up this way but I'm pretty happy with it. I managed to free up a bit more rock for coral and everything is stacked a bit higher up now.

View attachment 74141View attachment 74142

Wish I had seen all of this sooner. I would have been happy to help you with it. Your tank looks great!

 

[Reefer-Madness]

@chemaholic Well, we appreciate the advice either way.

Any shops in the Augusta area for fish food and clean up crew etc? I’ve had a couple people tell me about Bob’s Tropical Fish in town. I still have to swing by and check them out.