Southerrrngirrl Posted November 7, 2006 Report Share Posted November 7, 2006 We are possibly moving into a house of our own (fingers crossed!!) within the next two months and was wondering how on earth do you move fish and their tank? I did do a search on this as I'm sure people have asked this before but I couldn't find anything helpful. Can anyone point me in the right direction? What the best way to do it? Cheers Oh I should mention that this house is probably about 50 kms from where we are now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smidey Posted November 7, 2006 Report Share Posted November 7, 2006 hi I'm moving house this friday. I have a 200L main tank. I also have a 1 foot & a two foot tank that are unused. I'm going to setup the two smaller tanks with water out of main tank in the new house then bag carry the fish to new house. I'll put the bags in buckets in the car, I have a total of 30 fish so there will be a few bags. Then empty out the main tank leaving substrate & plants in for transport. Pour the water from smaller tanks back in main tank & fill as if I was doing a water change. Fortunately I have enough heaters & filters for one each tank. Think this covers it Smidey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PENEJANE Posted November 7, 2006 Report Share Posted November 7, 2006 Awesome to hear that you have got your own house. We are in the same boat. We just brought our own house to and move on the 17th. This is how I go about moving my tanks. I have done it once already. At Mitre 10 are cheap 5gal buckets. Yes the lids don't sit tight but they are better than nothing. Unless you can get nappy buckets from somewhere. Work it one tank at a time. Empty fish and some water into this bucket. If more buckets are required due to extra large tanks then spread the fish out over these buckets. Empty the rest of the water out of the tank so you are only left with gravel,plants and ordaments if any. Place tank and buckets into car or tank on trailer and buckets in back seat straped in with seatbelts (Place towels underneath for spills). If tank is on trailer make sure it is well padded and straped in or place boxes around it to keep it from sliding about. Once at new house find best position for tank and set it back up. Half full the tank with warm water from the new house. Make sure you run the taps for a good couple of mins first so you don't end up getting water that has been sitting in the pipes. Place filter and heater and switch on. Add fish from buckets to the tank and finish fulling with the water from buckets. Leave the light off to help reduce the stress on them untill the next day. Watch with a close eye if possible and best of luck. Simple term is bucket fish and some water depending on size of tank. Relocate tank and fill back up and leave lights off untill next day. If you are moving into town invercargills water is naturaly 7.2-7.4pH. Hope this helps and I am sure that others will give you their ideas to. Do what works best for you and for your fish. Congrats on the house. :bounce: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southerrrngirrl Posted November 7, 2006 Author Report Share Posted November 7, 2006 Thanks for the replies. Its not a done deal yet, but I'm just being super prepared, you know! Once the deal is done and everything is all go, moving day will be about 15-16 December... a week before christmas! Penejane, the house is in Otautau, I assume they have chlorinated water supply there, I didn't see a tank on the property. Will have to find out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PENEJANE Posted November 7, 2006 Report Share Posted November 7, 2006 Ohhh cool. We wanted to get a house out in nightcaps but our mortgage conditions wouldn't let us so we are stuck in town but thats all good as now that we have a house we can get another one later Good luck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smidey Posted November 15, 2006 Report Share Posted November 15, 2006 OK, I moved on the weekend. I did not do anything like what i said I would. I ended up bagging the fish, netted the larger fish first. Used two 20L containers to keep some tank water, emptied the rest of the tank until only an inch of water left in bottom so I did not have to chase the loaches (which are extremely quick when they want to be) & tetras around in the plants. Added a few drops of Aqua plus into each bag, added the fish & stacked the bags in a 30L chilly bin. I recommend you put a bag of hot water in the chilly bin which will help keep the temp up. Emptied the remaining water out of the tank leaving the plants in. Put the tank in the back of my ute & took the whole lot round to new house. Pumped two 20L of tank water into the tank using my canister filter as a pump, put the suck end of canister in drum & pumped into the tank via the spraybar so didn't have much substrate movement. Added the remaining water as if I was doing a water change then added the fish as per new fish rules, hung bags in for 30 mins etc. The fish looked as if they were all guna die that night, the neons & serpae neons had no colour & were swimming on an angle & the angels & loaches just sat on the bottom doing nothing. The following morning all was well with no casualities at all. Maybe they were all a bit out of it with the aqua plus from bags then tank for adding water. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharn Posted November 15, 2006 Report Share Posted November 15, 2006 i wonder if they reacted badly because of a change in water params ie ph, hardness etc? most of the time ph shock etc wont do too much damage (unless its a big change) but it can make fish act funny until their bodies catch up Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoandWilly Posted November 15, 2006 Report Share Posted November 15, 2006 When we moved from hamilton to auckland at the end of last year with 12 tanks this is what we done...... Collected up heaps of coke bottles for water storage, poly boxs and bags for fish storage and buckets for gravel. We were lucky and moved a coupel of tanks over a few weekends so didnt have to do them all in one day. For each tank this is what we done. 2 days before moving the tank gave it a good gravel vac and water change to get rid of as much gunk and nitrates as possible, also cleaned out the filters in tank water. Did not feed the fish from the time we gave the water change till after we moved the tank. On the day of the move, we caught all the fish and bagged them (individualy for larger ones and a few to a bag for smaller ones) and put them all in poly boxes. Take the filter media out of the filters and bag it the same way you would a fish(1/3 water, 2/3 air). Then filled as many cleaned coke bottles as we could we tank water, trying to get atleast half the volume of the tank. Emptyed the rest of the tank and then bucketed the gravel. Loaded everything up into the van and drove to aucks (2 hour drive). Once we got to our new house we put the tank in place. Put the gravel back in the tank(didnt wash it or anything). Filled the tank up with the coke bottles, then brought it up to temp using tap water and topped the tank up to just below where we would normally have it, set the heaters up, then unbagged the filter media and set the filters up. Would leave the tank running for an hour or so while we'd eat dinner, while the fish were still poly boxed. Then would do the usual realeasing of the fish, putting small amounts of water in the bag every 15mins for about an hour. Dont feed the fish the same day you move, and when you do feed them feed them lightly for a few days, the tank will still have some benefical bacteria but you dont want to overload the tank with food and that in the first week just incase. Doing this and moving 12 tanks, we didnt loose a single fish, and that included fry that weren't even a month old. And you dont have to use coke bottles for water storage, we used to drink a lot of stuff and would go through 6+ 2.25L bottles a week so saved up for about 2 months. I dont even drink 1 2.25L bottle a month now, cant stand the taste of coke. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southerrrngirrl Posted December 4, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 4, 2006 Thanks for the replys guys. Its now a done deal and we are moving the week/weekend before Christmas ! I did forget to mention that my tank is planted, not heavily but I don't want to go ripping up or destroying what I've got in there. I assume it would be ok to empty the tank of most of the water, perhaps leaving a cm or two in it for the plants. Hope it won't be to heavy to carry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharn Posted December 8, 2006 Report Share Posted December 8, 2006 if its got gravel its probably best not to move it with it still in as the bottom might crack i have moved small tanks with gravel still in (under 2 foot). its probably safer to pull the plants up when you remove the gravel, you can always chop the roots so that they are easier to plant later on and if you remove them carefully the plants wont get damaged. you can store them in those little zip lock bags or something similar for transport so they dont dry out. if not perhaps just leave gravel around where the plants are and remove the rest (depending on size of the tank)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted December 8, 2006 Report Share Posted December 8, 2006 Empty all the water out and cover the plants with wet newspaper to stop dehydration. If this isn't done the water sloshes around and rips everything out anyway. 50ks isn't far to travel. To pick up heavy tanks or to lift them if you back is liable to be hurt, have two ppl and find some old safety belts from down at a local wreckers. Saves the tank slipping from your fingers too. Alan 104 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dimebag Posted December 8, 2006 Report Share Posted December 8, 2006 i just shifted my 280l planted tank with about an inch of water, plus all sand and plants. just get a bit of thick ply or mdf or something strong to put the tank on to save the base. that way i was able to leave most of the fish apart from the discus in there. to store water in (and discus) i just used one of those 120 litre bins from the warehouse.we only shifted about 5 minutes away, but it only took just over 2 hours with no deaths Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southerrrngirrl Posted December 8, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 8, 2006 Thanks guys! I went to my LFS yesterday who kindly gave me a large polystyrene box with a lid. They said I could just bag the fish up and transport them in that. They also advised that I should remove plants and gravel from the tank as the base might break if I didn't remove them. Really don't want to have to do that but then again, it could be a good excuse to re-design the tank... but if I do that the fish will spend a lot more time bagged up than what I want then to. Hmmm... what to do Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joze Posted December 9, 2006 Report Share Posted December 9, 2006 I have to ask - didnt you realise you must strip the tank down? Some common sense prevails, keep your fish comfortable, empty your tank completely and make sure that you do the tank shift first, that way you are not tired (and fed up with moving) and make sloppy mistakes. At this point I hope you are not talking about something like a goldfish bowl or one of those pretend 1 foot tanks. Otherwise we would all look stupid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southerrrngirrl Posted December 9, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 9, 2006 Yes I was aware of that, the tank is not just a goldfish bowl, its 155 litres. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryanjury Posted December 10, 2006 Report Share Posted December 10, 2006 lol tell me about moving were moving auckland to bulls and have thinned the tanks down to 8 setup filled with fish ranging from aftricans to discus awesome the big move and fish pack happens tomorrow.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharn Posted December 10, 2006 Report Share Posted December 10, 2006 as joze said, definatly do it at the beginning of the day and make sure everything is planned well, having hiccups or people getting in the way is a pain in the bum your fish will not mind being in bags for a few hours as long as they are packed well (1/3 water, 2/3 air). keep them in the polybox until you are ready to put them in the tank as the dark will help keep them calmer. fish get shipped around the country all the time, some make 12+ hour trips and they are fine, i wouldnt worry about it for a few hours Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southerrrngirrl Posted December 11, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 11, 2006 I think I'm well organised. Just have to get some bags and some large containers to transport the water in. I plan to move it this Sunday morning, (hubby doesn't know that yet though!) I have even gone to the extent of writing everything down that I need to do and in what order. Just so I don't forget anything. There won't be anyone in the way, it'll just be hubby and I. I knew there was a good reason I didn't want to get a bigger tank before we bought a house! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southerrrngirrl Posted December 18, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 18, 2006 It's done. We moved the fish tank into the new house yesterday, and apart from a small incident which involved me turning the pump on and having water spray upwards because the spray bar was positioned incorrectly, everthing went smoothly! All fish accounted for and seem to be ok. It was hard work though, glad its all over! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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