I'm thinking about moving house, and I have about 5 fish tanks going.. most of em small, 60 cm (three), and one 255L. Can anyone recommended any good movers in the Auckland region that have experience moving fish tanks without breaking em? Thanks!

Btw, do you need to break down the tank before you move, cos the 255l is planted, and if possible i reeeaaally dun wanna start again from scratch.

f i were you i would do the tanks myself. no mover is going to care about your tanks as much as you do.

as for your planted tank, it is possible to move without stripping completely, but you need to take a lot of care.

i shifted my 300l planted tank like this:

catch fish and put in bags, or a large plastic container

emptied all but 20mm of the water (just enough for the banjo cats and eels)

carefully slid tank onto a piece of 19mm ply ( i think it was 19mm, get thicker if poss

needed 4 strong people to carry to van

took about 150 litres of tank water in a big barrel to fill tank with again.

then set up stand, tank etc in new house, fill with tank water, add the fish, and fill tank rest of the way with fresh water.

from start to finish it took me 2 and a half hours to do it this way.

probably would have taken all day to strip the tank completely an set back up again.

just need to be careful.

how far are you moving?

I moved 17 tanks from Auckland to bulls, moved them with nzvan lines they thought I was ridiculous, only had one causality my 540litre display tank got chipped but they paid out alot of insurance to fix that one, most of the smaller tanks were bubble wrapped and all good, the main thing about a moving company is they will insure the tanks so no need to worry.. I moved all the livestock myself though they wont touch a tank or anything with water in it..

Actually.. probably just moving em a couple of streets down Thanks for the advice dimebag, unfortunately just broke down my tank anyway for a totally different reason - my mdf stand got water logged and was starting to disintegrate, and all my able bodied friends (im useless cos i sprained my wrist) are busy up til christmas. I might do that trick with the smaller tanks though.

Ryanjury was that just a one off company which doesn't move anything with water in it, or are all of them like that?

Thanks again for the advice guys

I contacted a lot of moving companys recently when I wanted to buy and ship a tank from Auckland to Christchurch and they all said they'd move it but won't insure it so if it gets broken it your problem. Hence didn't buy it.

i have moved multiple times with different sizes. no one will shift it with water as it is way too heavy!!

And Chrisa - most moving companies wont move tanks unless you have a whole truck load but all offer insurance when moving, and if not ask them for it.

I shifted flats last weekend, had to shift my two small tanks (22 litre and 35 litre) and a big 170 odd litre tank.

Essentially did the same thing as dimebag for my big tank, but completely emptied it. Fish all into one 20 litre bucket. Drained almost entire tank into big plastic garbage bin, rest of water went into two 20 litre containers. Dropped driftwood into bin with water, as well as plants

Scooped gravel out into bags.

Shifted everything over and filled it up again. Transfered water from bin into the 20 litre containers for transport.

Went very smoothly. I didn't leave the gravel in as it would have been far far too heavy to lift safely and I didn't want to risk the bottom falling out/cracking under the strain

Good luck!