Moving a fish tank

Morning All

Need some advice and help please...

I need to move my fish tank to another room in our home. Tank size: 1200 x 450 x 450. 250L tank with cabinet.

What I am planning to do:

1) Remove to top part of the cabinet that contains the lights ect.
2) Siphon and Gravel Vac 35% of the water and discard.
3) Siphon out water into a bucket and place fish into this bucket to transport the fish, will add a airstone into the bucket.
4) Siphon the rest in a huge container to keep to replace but keep enough water to keep the gravel bed wet.
5) Use manpower to lift the tank and cabinet together onto a pallett jack, less change of twisting the tank and cracking it.
6) Place in new location.
7) Replace siphon water from huge container into the tank.
8) Get all the filters, airstones and heater running.
9) Dose tank with StressGuard
10) Add fish back into the tank, once the temp ius back to normal.
11) Top up tank with fresh treated water, Prime and Stability.

Any other ideas or comments would be appreciated.

Thanks All

 

Hi @Reedfish

Thank you

I thought of that aswell, but won't the base of the cabinet support the fishtank base? I will be getting someone to lift it on the corners and two in the middle. Only have to raise it a couple of cm to just get the jack underneath it?

Just afraid removing the gravel as well creates to much of a disturbance, I might be wrong

 

Haha @Reedfish, now I'm even more worried about this move.

 

Hi agree with @Reedfish here. You rather move a lot of the gravel and make it as lite as you can. You can deal with the mess later. It's better than having a cracked tank.

 

Hi @dash, will I have to put a heater in the bucket with the fish in?

Do you think this will have to tank going into a cycle again?

I'm not looking forward to this, but it has to be done

 

Hi. What fish and what size bucket you going to use. We need to keep the biological media in your filter alive. Take the biological media out the filter and place in another bucket with air stone and tank water. Depending on the size of holding bucket you use and filter you have you could even run the filter on the holding bucket.

 

Hi.

The problem is the tank has a internal biological filter. So I can use it as one would be able to with a canister filter.

i have guppies, neons, Danio's and small clown loaches. bucket is roughly 30L

 

Bucket may be a bit small for holding all those fish for any long period of time. With regards to the filter media then, keep it in another holding bucket.

Is there any way you can use a few holding buckets for the fish? Get some thing to cover the buckets. Fish May jump when in the buckets. Also don't feed them for a day before moving them. We want to avoid ammonia spikes in the bucket.

 

Great will take the advice, thanks a lot for this.

 

@Reedfish

From the time of fish going into the holding bucket up until time they go back into the tank will be roughly 1 hour, if I should guess

 

@Reedfish

Already have my plan dotted down so I know what comes next. Don't want to make stupid mistakes

 

Go all out ..... time for a rescape, new substrate more plants / hardscape, make the move count new location is great but a new looking tank even better.

In this weather this might seriously reduce the water temp ... depending on size of fish etc either add heater or just chuck a blanket over the bucket to insulate it a bit. Not like you are planning to keep the fish in here for more than a few hours. Bigger bucket is best.

If you are not rescaping and this is a silica or stone substrate - take the time and give it all a good old flush.

Hey step 12) post pics

Later Ferdie

 

Hi All

The move couldn't have gone better, thanks for everyones input.
Didn't loose any fish and no cracked tank.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to take picture during the move, tried to do everything as quick as possible.

Must say planning prior to starting to move helped a lot.

Will post picks of the tank in the new location.

Thanks again

 

Glad it worked out.