Moving house, best way to do it

[RobertK]

My first post on this forum , so first of all hello to every one

I'm due to move house in a week or two, would any of you have any good tips on moving my fish tanks, I have three, a 50 gallon bow fronted tank with an assortment of small community fish, various Rainbows, RTB shark, kribensis etc, and a few Corydorus, and a second tank which isn't so much of a problem, a 5 gallon tank with 4 small angels being brought on for future breeding, and a 20 gallon coldwater tank with 4 or 5 large goldfish.
I'm not moving too far, only about a mile, so would be the best method to minimize the risk to the fish, and are there any preperations I could start beforehand.

Best regards

Robert

 

[Eelzor]

Firstly, Welcome to the forum! Moving a fishtank is a big thing, and is a process that most would hate to do. eeping the good cycled water you have now would be probably impossible. People don't move houses everyday that's why this hardly ever happens. Anyway, see if you can get a nice fish store or a friend or someone you can trust to keep the fish you have currently for quite a while. Because re-setting up your tank in your new house will mean fully building it, then leaving your tank to cycling again, then going to pick up your fish again form wherever you left them in the first place. I have never been in that situation so I am quite sure that someone else will have a better response. But that's my 2 cents. 8)

 

[CFC]

I have moved my fish twice and one thing i will say is it is a lot of work! I move my fish by bagging them in plastic bags one fish to a bag and placing the bags into polystyrene boxes to keep them warm. The fish are the easy bit, the hard part is keeping enough of the benefitial bacteria from the tank alive to avoid a cycle when the tank is set back up. The first and most important thing is the filter media, this has to be bagged in the same way as the fish but will need oxygen tablets added to the bag before sealing it to provide the bacteria with the high ammount of oxygen they need to survive. Next is the substrate, this needs to kept as wet as possible in large waterproof bags, black refuse sacks are ideal. Lastly you need to try and keep as much of the old tank water as possible, ideally at least half. Being placed into new water can be a shock to fish and being already stressed they are left open to diseases like whitespot (ICH) and velvet.

Good luck with it all and try not to get too stressed.

 

[Cian McLiam]

Ok here goes:
I moved house 4 weeks ago and brought two tanks and a bowl with me. I brought almost all the water with me and didnt lose any fish at all.
Firstly the house we were moving to was 1hr away and we had access for three nights before final move.
I changed 10% water in both tanks each day but didnt use a gravel vac, just took water from the surface, this water is the best quality in the tank. I moved this water to new house in bin liners.. I thought these might be toxic but caused no problems.
On the night of the full move, I emptied 1/4 of the water into bin liners that were in kitchen bins, then removed all plants and decorations into theses bins to avoid having them crushed. I put a tiny amount of flake food into the tank and took 8 neons in one swoop from the tank, into a bag of water and then into a styrofoam box I got for free from a fish shop (thanks Joe!). Ditto for the rest of the fish. I then put all but 1/5 of the water into buckets lined with bin liners, which I then tied to avoid spils. The gravel I took out and washed a scoop at a time and cleaned the filter media in the remaining water, which was then dumped.
On the journey my girlfreind kept the filter media on her lap and swayed and shook the bags with 1/4 tank water to keep the bacteria alive.
On getting to new house, I put all the gravel in and decorations, filled the tanks with the water I brought over and left some new house water to age overnight in the buckets.
I floated the bags of fish in the tank and put carbon and Bio-Chem zorb into the filter to remove any toxins from the bags. Left them like this for an hour and then released the fish.
Next day I topped the tank up with the newly aged water.

As I said, its ben 4 weeks and I didnt lose any fish but you must try and be=ring as much water as is practical and keep the filter running until the last moment.
Your aim once you get to the house is to have the filter back up and running ASAP, dont worry about the fish, most have taken much longer journeys...

Hope it goes well and to give you an idea of the scale of my move heres my big tank before and after!

Before:

 

[Cian McLiam]

After:

 

[Aqua_Princess64]

Try this website!

 

[leah9798]

Ken I just had to comment on how beautiful your fish are!!! I've never seen angels those colors before, absolutely beautiful!! Where can I get them? LOL Leah

 

[Cian McLiam]

Hi Leah,
Thanks!!
The fish on the right is a 'gold marbled blushing angel', the one on the left is a 'new gold' angel. The new gold is quite common, the other is fairly common in its individual traits ie. gold, marbled or blushing all three is becoming more common but the colouring is very diferent in most fish.
The Blushing trait leaves the fish more prone to bacterial infection of the gills and of course the inbreeding weakens them further but they still are a beautiful fish if the tank water is right for them!
BTW i got them from a breeder in Ireland so cant help you there!!

Ken

 

[juanveldez]

basically just like all the others said KEEP as much of the water as you can. your only moving a mile down the road so I wouldn't worry about a battery powered air pump. but you want to keep the substrate in as much water as possible I would serioulsly consider a plastic rubbish can with a tight fitting lid.

 

[RobertK]

Thank you all for your advice, I'm absolutely dreading the move, but with your help I think I can do it with out too many casualties.
I've invested in 4 plastic dustbins with lids, which hold aprox 20 gallons each, so that should take care of the water.
I never thought about bagging the fish up, that sounds a much better idea then mine of just putting all the fish in three polystyrene boxs I've collected over the years.

Thanks again all for your help.

Robert