Transporting fish

Hi all,

I am moving into a ne home at the end of the month and want to know what would be the best way to transport my fish. Is there any way to keep my already cycled tank from having to go through the whole cycling process again once I'm in the new place? I am pretty new at this whole thing so any help would be appreciated.

 

What is the tear down - transport - setup time like?

 

The place is about 3kms from where I'm staying now. I'm guessing the take down, transport and setup will probably take me around 1 to 2 hours depending on how exactly I'm going to do the transporting. I was thinking of using a cooler box to transport them as it might keep the water temperature consistent. Problem is that they've obviously been used before and washed out with all kinds of cleaning products.I've got 2 tanks, one 30L and one 100L with 13 fish overall.

 

I would go with bag them (Big bag with O2 from an air pump) with tank water - into the insulated cooler box .. save as much water as you can from the current tank - get it all setup on the other side top up the water - get it to an OK temp and introduce the fish as if just brought from the LFS.

To prepare - I would feed less and see if you can drop the tank temp before the move - not sure what you are comfortable at temp wise .. but I would not go below 20 for most before transport.

Later Ferdie

 

Thanks Ferdie, only problem is that I don't have an O2 pump. Do you think it'll be ok if I just fill it up with air and maybe drop one of those O2 pills in there? When should I start feeding them less and start dropping the temperature and by how much. My tanks are currently running at 28 degrees.

 

Where you at and what is the ambient temperature? 28 degrees does not leave loads of O2 in the water and it is a bugger to keep it at that when you do not have a heater - thinking about it O2 tablets for fish that are normally live at 28 might not be a hot plan ( then again I have only ever had a tank that high when I wanted to rid ich) so am have no clue what would be better for a lower temp - maybe 23 ? What fish are they?

Feed them less as you drop the temp over a few days.

 

I'm in Pretoria. My tank was running at about 25 deg until about 2 weeks ago when two of my Zebra danios got Ich so I raised the temperature to 28 after I did some reading on it. It does seem to be all good now so I'll start dropping it again. The 100L tank has 1 x rainbow shark and 2 x Tinfoil barbs and the 30L 2 x Zebra danios, 4 x Red eye tetras, 1 x Sailfin Molly and a small Angelfish. I only got the 100L tank about 3 weeks ago and will eventualy move most of the fish in there.

 

Why not put the filter that currently in the 100L into the 30L.
Transfer all the fish from the 100L to the 30L.
Setup the 100L at your new premises and bring the fish and filters over.
Setup the 30L and move the fish over that is currently in it.

 

Thanks mattie, I think the 30L will be a little heavy to carry and tranport without cracking the glass but you gave a good idea. Put all the fish in the 30L. Transfer the filter in some of the current water to the new place along with the 100L tank. Set it up and transport the fish in 2 smaller (not used before) containers on a dedicated trip which will save a lot of time.

 

One week after the move. All fish still surviving.