Help With How To Move A Fish Tank

[gleco]

Hi,

I'm looking for advise or if you have done it how you did it to move my fish tank to our new house about 20 minutes away from current home.

The tank is 4ft so about 210 litres with about 20 fish all reasonable size and a pleco that wont fit in a bag needs a bucket. I assume I need to take as much of the water as possible just not sure the best way to do this.

Any advise would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[fluttermoth]

Arm yourself with some polystyrene boxes (ask your LFS) or cool boxes and plenty of bags.

Leave the tank until last, or as near last as possible. Bag up all your fish and pack them in the boxes. Drain the tank, wrapping any plants in damp newspaper. Remove all the decor and substrate before you move the tank; moving it with substrate still in can strain the seals. Put your filter in a bucket in a plastic bag so it stays damp, or take the media out and transport in a fish bag; just don't let it dry out.
If it's easier, you can syphon out the substrate with a hose and get it and the plants washed and packed up the day before.

If your water changes are up to date, and you're moving only 20 minutes away, the water should be fairly similar, so I wouldn't worry too much about saving water; you don't need to unless the water at the new place is radically different in pH and/or hardness.

At the other end, get the tank unpacked, substrate, plants and filter/heaters back in, refill, dechlorinate and bring up to temp with hot water from the kettle or hot tap ASAP. Don't worry about scaping, you can do that over the next few days. then put the fish in to float, and acclimatise while you get the rest of your stuff unpacked; then let them go and you should be fine