Moving Tank need as much info as possible.

[Shnabbles]

In alittle over 3 weeks we will be moving. We arent moving far at all, actually only 7 miles down the road but i am really starting to stress out alittle about the move.

The tank is only a 55 gallon with a HOB skimmer, and fillter.. The tank has about 50lbs of live rock, and bout 60lbs of live sand (if i remember correctly its about 2-4 inch sand bed) its a mixed reef with soft and some lps corals and several fish.. The live sand has tons of life in it all kinds of nassarius snails, and even several generations of some kind of whelk snails.

If anyone has any suggestions or can post some links to other peoples moving threads i would really appreciate it.

We are either upgrading to a 75 during the move, or just moving them into a 100gallon poly tub and starting the build on my 265 right away or not.

[sunfish11]

I have moved tanks twice and my biggest recomendation is to chuck the sand or rinse it very well with clean salt water and don't stack it up deep for the trip. If you chuck it, and I would, then save a few cup fulls to seed the new sand bed. Don't buy the live sand, get the regular aragonite sand. This will help you avoid a cycle. You may still cycle a little so be prepared for some water changes. If you must keep the sand then leave it on the bottom of the tank with an inch of water on it for the move and try to disturb it as little as possible to avoid die off, a release of nasty gunk, and a big nasty cycle in the newly set up tank.

My farthest move with a tank was 6 hours, but the animals and rock all wound up out of a tank for at least 12-14 hours by the end of it all. I had no losses. I put my fish in an airated minnow bucket (available at any sporting goods store) along with my cleaning crew and shrimp. Don't forget a small heater if you think they will be in the bucket to long. I bagged each coral individually and put them in an insulated ice chest (no ice;) ). I moved the live rock in 5 gallon buckets of tank water. You will have less cycle if you keep the rock submerged during the move. If you don't have enough tank water left to move the rock then used newly mixed aged water.

Hope this helps!

Lisa

[sunfish11]

PS. You are going to have to sift all your snails out of that sand. I will reiterate the 'don't use it portion' of my old post.

[blureef1]

I have moved tanks on the order of 6-7 times and have used various methods that have all worked out OK, without the loss of life. I have always had an extra 50 gallon tank that I could transfer the rock, fish and corals to while I set up the tank at the new location. I have actually kept the critters in the temp tank for a couple of days.

The sand seems to be the biggest issue, as it really gets stirred up when adding it back to the tank. I have used the wash and reuse method, the throw away and buy new sand method, and the don't do anything with it method. The buy new sand method is my preference if funds allow, but I haven't really had any issues with either of them. If you reuse without cleaning, make sure you put the sand in the tank before the water, and be careful when adding water to not stir it up too much. Not ideal but workable.

[Shnabbles]

What should i use to sift the sand? Some of these baby snails are really small lol..

Will the nassarius snails be ok in a tank with no sand?

[Shnabbles]

*bump*

[sunfish11]

Yes, the snails will be okay without sand for a while. They ship them without it. Feed them and get them to come up and get as many as you can. Then you will probably just have to pick through the rest while you are removing it to get the rest. You are going to lose some probably.