Moving

I am going to be moving my 40gallon reef on Saturday, any advice?

 

spare heaters to keep the temperature constant. ( try to leave it lower than usual to maximize O2)
air stones (must have to keep O2 levels good in the buckets)
thermometers
lots of buckets
and
patience.

 

don't dump out all ur water. and have fresh saltwater on hand. lol bring a small army to move it

 

I did this with mine a week or so ago and I can say....

lots of buckets

spare heater's

air pump for fish

store the corals in a diffrent bucket than the fish

get a rubermaid container for the live rock its much easyier to store

a small army and some muscle

and good luck ;D

 

You didn't say how far, and the ambient temps along the way.

Good advice though, if you're going to move it more than an hour or so away.

 

It's only going to be a couple of miles away so its really close by. Thanks for the advice guys

 

If you're moving across town... Shouldn't have too much issue with temp. Here's what i would do.

First, buy a bunch of 5 gallon buckets.
Use these for everything from your live rock to your fish. 5 gallon buckets are much easier to manage than Rubbermaid totes that get very heavy once filled with water let alone the bowing that happens. Plus you can get them pretty cheap. You'll only be able to fit a small amount of rock per bucket but you want to have your rock submersed to avoid die off and they'll already be heavy...

Second, Once you get on location i would transfer your fish to a Rubbermaid container since it's bigger, and you can setup a pump/heater to keep it comfy for your fish while you get the tank in order.

Third, Plan on keeping about 1/2 your old tank water and then having new for the rest. If at all possible, have this mixed up and ready to go ahead of time, that way the temp will be at the very least room temperature.

Fourth, if you can avoid disturbing the sand bed DO! You'll stir up all kinds of nasties if you do. Simply siphon the water off all the way down to the sand bed. This should get the tank down to a manageable weight and you won't have to worry about breaking the seals. However, if you have a deep sand bed this may not work. Use your own judgement, if you're afraid the tank can't handle it then better remove some.

If you do disturb the sand bed, i kind of suggest using fresh new sand to replace it... doesn't even have to be live as you have live rock and can mix some of the old sand in to seed it. Have extra salt water mixed and ready to go in the event you need to do an emergency water change and check check check check your lvls, namely ammonia. If at all possible, wait to add your fishes back to your tank until you're certain you don't have a huge ammonia spike going on. This is what happened to me on my last move and i regret rushing it. I simply got complacent with having moved a couple times already and my starfish, damsel, and prized lionfish paid the price.

Heavy duty trash bags can help keep water contained... i had put my bags in the buckets and then filled them in the buckets but rock can be sharp so you may want to just put the buckets in the bags...

If you need to heat up your new tank water fast... fastest way to do this is to boil tap water on the stove. Get a gallon water jug or similar wait a few seconds and then VERY EXTREMELY CAREFULLY with a funnel, fill the jug with the hot water. the jug will deform but shouldn't melt through. put the cap on and with a towel or hot pad place the jug into your water. If you have a couple of these going and rotate them out every 1/2 hour or so you can raise the tank temp quite drastically in a short amount of time. if my memory serves, 15-30 min per floater got me about 5 degrees. So you can quickly raise the temp 10-20 degrees within an hour easy. Just please please please be very careful not to burn yourself...

if i think of anything else i'll chime in.

 

Epsilon has a lot of good points. I've got some slightly different things I do:

- Instead of 5 gallon buckets for water, I use Rubbermaid heavy duty trash cans. I put them on the move truck empty with a heavy duty trash bag in them. I back the truck up to the front door and using a long piece of plastic tubing I pump the water directly into the trash can until it's half full then move to the next, etc. until the tank is empty.

- I actually disturb the sand bed and remove most the sand. I had a tank break once because we moved it with sand and a little water.

- I buy coolers for the livestock. I line them with trash bags as well. This helps keep the temperature. Always put them in conditioned environment when possible to minimize temperature change.

- Make sure you have new water brewing at the new location. I like to have 50% of the system volume brewing. You probably won't need it all, but whatever you don't use can be saved for a first water change.