Moving

[skiltrip]

I plan on moving soon. Next year or so. No specific plans yet, but I want to begin collecting information and methods for moving fish and their tank with the least possible stress on the fish, and also not destroying the biological filter.

My main tank is a 37 gallon. How would I go about moving the tank, and the fish (firemouth, redtail shark, cuckoo cat, 2 rosy barbs, 5 tiger barbs), and not destroy the bio filter or kill my fish?

I'm sure there are differing methods and opinions, I'd like to hear them all!

- Kip

 

[skiltrip]

bumpity bump bump bump

 

[Nallen]

I used regular plastic fishbags. The tank was the last thing i moved out of the old place and the first thing I moved in to the new place... But that might not be a solution for everyone.

 

[Cian McLiam]

Heres how I described my move a month ago on an earlier post:

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...
Ken

 

[skiltrip]

thanks! tons of helpful information in there! anyone else have any stories of moving? or any other ideas or things to consider?

- kip

 

[lizard]

Speaking of moving fishies... When you get new fishies at the store and they're put in the plastic bags with oxygen/air, how long will the air in the bag last 'em? I know it would depend on the size of the bag and the amount of air put it, but I mean as a general rule.

Farthest I've ver moved fishies was about 2.5 hours and it wasn't a big aquarium or anything like that, it was simply a Betta. I'm of no help with the big move thing. Sorry.

Pamela
aka Lizard
who REALLY needs to quite watching her fish and reading about fish and GO DO HOMEWORK, 'cause she has a test tomorrow on sentence diagramming and stuff like that. Darn fish...being so intriguing and interesting....