Moving Tank

[Fintastic!]

I need to move my tank to another room. Do I drain as much of the water as I can while leaving the fish in, bag the media, move tank, then refill very slowly? Is it that simple?
 
I know there are other threads around here about this but I'm having trouble when I click on search.
 
Thanks for any advice.

  

 

[SmexxyNick]

What kind of fish ?

 

[paradiddle]

Size?
Your better off emptying it into buckets and moving the empty tank, all manuals will say dont move the tank with stuff in it puts pressure on certain spots and you don't wanna break it!
If its like ~ 40L just drain 85% and carry it with a friend

 

[ky*weremiej]

Get the biggest bucket you own and drain water out of you tank into it, put your fish in it or if its not big enough get more buckets because you want to save 50% of your water next drain of the rest of the tank.
 
Your next move depends on the size of your tank and if its heavily planted, if its only a 40 litre then your going to get away with moving it with only taking out big rocks and wood, but if you have a large 200 litre tank then your gonna have to empty a lot of the substrate or the bottom of the tank could be weaken or crack.
 
Once you reposition it then fill it up with the water in the buckets and put the fish in, from there on its as simple as doing a water change.
 
 Hope this helps, I once knew a guy who decided to pick up a 300 litre tank with his friend while half full and then wondered why the bottom of his tank blew out,,,,, what a fool !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[germanblueR]

You could save some of the water and add it back in, its certainly not required. A complete waterchange isn't going to hurt anything. When I move tanks no matter how far or small I don't bother saving water and its never been an issue.

Moving a tank thats completely empty is always the safest means to move a tank.

Tanks vary depending on location, in the US all our standard sized tanks have whats called a floating base where the bottom glass doesn't actually touch anything and is only supported at the plastic around the edge. Its stressing the seals that you want to worry about not the glass.

 

[kevingrods]

do no under estimate the weight of the tank!  It is much heavier than you can imagine

 

[Shelster]

I have a 180 litre, and recently had to move it about three metres for decorating.

Luckily it's on a stand, so I literally drained as much water as possible with fish having enough water to be submersed still, then three of us moved it.

We did the same three weeks later to move it back and all was well.

I didnt save any previous tank water, just gave them fresh both times.

Good luck.

 

[Fintastic!]

Hi guys, so sorry I'm only getting back to this now! Thanks so much for all of your replies. I'll be moving it sometime next week. It's a Rio 180 litre with cories, a betta, rasboras, a platy and a clown plec. My stocking isn't great but I've had problems with fish dying. All seems well again but I'm waiting a while before I add anything else. 

 

[crash274]

When I moved, I drained the tank water into a 30 gallon igloo cooler that I cleaned and sterilized. Used a portable battery powered air pump with a hole drilled through the top of the cooler for the air line. I transferred the fish and plants into the cooler and wrapped it in a blanket to maintain temp. This gave me not only a good way to move them in the truck, but more importantly gave me the time to set up the tank and play around with its location, and set up, untill I was happy. Nothing worst then setting up and deciding a day later it would look better elsewhere.

 

[Fintastic!]

Thanks Crash, thanks everyone!