Moving soon

Jason McKenzie · 04-22-2005, 08:14 AM

I will be moving my 75G and my 40G in the next few weeks. I will have to do it very fast as to not risk loosing coral or fish, but I have come up with a few questions I'm hoping I can get some help with.

Sand bed. There is no way I can move the sand bed without disturbing it. So is it best to kill it and rise it really well, Just put it back and ensure I run the tank until my readings are good and then add my Live stock, Buy New Sand, or go bare bottom?

Coral, Should I pull it all off the rock work and remount it after the move?

I would like to do some house keeping while the tank is down, like deal with some hair algae and a mantis. Will dipping my rock into a fresh water bath to flush the Mantis and then scrubbing the algae off cause the die off to create cycle type levels of Ammonia?

Thanks
J

szidls · 04-22-2005, 08:38 AM

J,
We just went through tank breakdowns and move due to new carpet being installed in our house. All our tanks are BB so there wasn't a sand bed issue. We transferred fish and corals and rock into brute containers while breaking down tanks. We tried to save as much tank water as possible to add when refilling.
I have heard other reefers remove sand beds and keep part of the top layer to reseed new sand to re start. I personally like BB because it forces you to remove detritus because it's easy to see on tank bottom.
In our move we had no noticable tank cycle. All corals made it fine. We lost a bi-color blenny due to stress. Rock and livestock were in Brute containers for about 48 hours. We did have heater, power heads, and light for them. We also left corals attached to rock. If I were going to move to a new house I probably would remove them as to keep any damage to a minimum.
HTH, Scott

blue_eyes53813 · 04-22-2005, 10:32 AM

I moved Jan. 17th. I sold my house and had to stay at my moms until April 9th. I had a 125 gallon that was a full blown reef. I took it all down and split the fish, corals, live sand (everything I should say) between 3 smaller tanks because my moms floor would not hold a 125 . I built a new house and I am just starting to move EVERYTHING to the new house., During the move everything did very very well. no losses. I did the same as you, Use as much water as possible from the main tank. I did the same as you and got rid of some unwanted apstasia and algae. As for the sand ( that is a little tougher. ) Put the sand in first and use a bowl of some sort , set it on the sand and pour water into bowl instead of right onto sand. I had very little disturbance to the sand. I am in the process of building my new 265 gallon into the wall and hopefully will soon start to move my livestock all back. It has been along process.Good luck.

Jason McKenzie · 04-22-2005, 10:40 AM

Just wondering what method you used to ride yourself of Aptasia and Algea? :mad:

Quote:

Originally Posted by blue_eyes53813

I moved Jan. 17th. I sold my house and had to stay at my moms until April 9th. I had a 125 gallon that was a full blown reef. I took it all down and split the fish, corals, live sand (everything I should say) between 3 smaller tanks because my moms floor would not hold a 125 . I built a new house and I am just starting to move EVERYTHING to the new house., During the move everything did very very well. no losses. I did the same as you, Use as much water as possible from the main tank. I did the same as you and got rid of some unwanted apstasia and algae. As for the sand ( that is a little tougher. ) Put the sand in first and use a bowl of some sort , set it on the sand and pour water into bowl instead of right onto sand. I had very little disturbance to the sand. I am in the process of building my new 265 gallon into the wall and hopefully will soon start to move my livestock all back. It has been along process.Good luck.

blue_eyes53813 · 04-22-2005, 10:51 AM

For both I literally just scrubbed the rocks where they were. I had maybe 6- 10 rocks with aptasia. I got a seperate bowl with salt water and cut the aptasi off the rocks with scissors and scrubbed the area with an old toothbrush. I had another bowl with more salt water to rinse the rock off. If there wasnt any corals or anything on the rock I rinsed it with regular water after I cut it off.I changed all bowls of water after each use.So far so good, I havent seen anymore. It was kinda risky if there was coral on the rock, But the aptasia will probably harm it sometime anyway. I just wanted the aptasia gone.

beamer · 04-22-2005, 11:03 AM

I removed my rock from the tank that had the aptasia attached to it, put it in a bowl and applied the juice. I let it sit out in the open for a few minutes. It just kind of melted. These were in the middle of a button polyp colony so I did not scrub the rock. I put it back into the tank and havent seen any since. Its been around 2 months now.

Cindy

Phil5613 · 04-23-2005, 03:16 PM

How are you moving everything by truck, van or??? I have used a couple of things to move the water most times its rubbermaid garbage cans and a 2 wheel dolly (still very heavy!) I have used 5 gallon water bottles before (not as heavy but you need a bunch!) Lately I save only 20 % of the water and make new water at the new location days in advance, heat it get it to proper salinity and have it ready to go. Live rock goes into 18 gallon rubber maid tubs to be moved around with a dolley. Stack rock carefully do not detach corals and fill with water. I have also used large fish bags in the containers if traveling a long distance to help keep splashing down. I prefer to leave the sand bed as intact as possible in the tank as long as tank doesnt have to be tipped. Another thing I like to do is loop the filter so it runs back into itself. that way it runs during teardown, gets unplugged for the move and is plugged in right away in new location. You can use 5 gallon buckets to hole the watre from the filter during the move. Have LFS that you are friendly with ask them to save you some styros for your move they work well and are a nice size to work with. i akso have those cheapie styro coolers you can put a six pack in. two of them fit ok in a plastic tub and away ya go.

Phil5613 · 04-23-2005, 03:17 PM

man still havent leared to use spell check

Gresham · 04-26-2005, 01:31 AM

Just how far is the move? I'm a pro mover, or so I claim after moving thousands of gallons of reef tanks now. Gimme the scope and I'll give you some protocal

Jason McKenzie · 04-26-2005, 02:45 PM

Well,
I'm moving the tank from the second floor of a condo. To the ground level floor of a house approx 10 KMs away. I have 4 helpers. Because of the "U" shape of the stars I'm afraid it would be too difficult to try and keep the sand in the tank.

Any and all help would be Great.
Thanks
J