Taking fish and corals on a 2 day car trip, crazy idea?
 

I'm going to be moving to a different state next week and I would like to take my fish and corals with me. It will be a 2 day drive. For livestock I have 6 fish, a large leather, bta and some zoanthids and misc polyps.

I was planning on transporting everything in a couple of large rubbermaids with battery operated air pumps.

Is this a crazy idea, should I sell everything or can it be done?

Thanks.

you might be able to do it...but why not just start over...

Hmmmm. Risky. Possible, but very risky.

Starting over is an option but everything I have, I've had for years except for my tang. It will be sad to give them up.

Why not just start over?

My fish are like family members to me. I'm thinking bout moving to FL and theres no way I'd leave my my fish behind. But thats just a risk I'm willing to take. I think a 2 day trip is a little harder than a 10 hour drive to FL but I think its still capable of being done.

On the other hand, if you're not too attached to your fish, starting over would definitly be easier.

When I saw car trip I was thinking "road trip" like in the old days. You better have a fat wallet because your car buddies will drink like fish. :)

Shotgun!

Get some air pumps and maybe a power inverter to run your heater (if needed) possibly have a clip on fan of some sort for cooling if required. I don't see any reason why it can't be done.

I would go the power inverter route. Also be careful about just running airstones for that long that your ph doesn't bottom out. Maybe go with a small powerhead instead with a venturi that you can open and close periodically? I'm very interested in this because I was considering the same thing in a couple years when I have to move. I'd love to find out how it went if you go through with it!

I kept my tank in buckets and powerheads for three days.. waiting to get a new tank moved over to the new house.. (murphy's law).. one full day was the move from one state to the other.
It can be done.. your biggest concern will be the aggression that will be displayed if you have all the fish in the same bucket..
multiple buckets will be required.. also use a lid on the buckets and pump the airstone into the bucket through a small hole in the lid.
that will eliminate two things... Jumpers and most of the evaporation.
have a extra bucket of fresh saltwater to keep them refreshed as well.. the water will get dirty quickly.
or have the ability to make fresh sw..
live rock etc just needs to be kept damp...
including believe it or not most sps/lps and softies..
although I did bag them seperately.
hope this helps

Have you considered the possibility of air-freighting or overnighting the fish or more delicate corals ahead of you to a trusted friend or another reefer in the area you'll be moving to?

I mean, with mushrooms, zoas, and liverock there's no sense in really shipping ahead so long as you keep the temp and salinity fairly consistent. But the fish and more delicate corals could be bagged up and shipped ahead so they go right into a tank.

I have an inverter I can use for powerheads and a heater, never thought about that. Total travel time with be between 21 - 28 hours if we stop for the night.

I'm thinking of putting the fish and bta in a large rubbermaid, 30 gallons or so. I ordered some battery operated airpumps last night and kent ammo detox if I that became a problem. I was also going to make up some fresh salt water so that I could do a small waterchange sometime during the trip.

My tank has been neglected with getting the house ready to sell so maybe my livestock have acclimated to bad conditions and the trip won't be too hard on them, lol.

thanks for the advice, I'll try to update on how the trip went and what I did right and I'm sure wrong.

1. It can be done. Fish shipped from their collection sites can sometimes go 36+ hours in a plastic bag, although they are pumped full of oxygen.

2. Starting 3 or 4 days before the move, don't feed anything! It's better for them to be a little hungry when you get there than to poop in the container and pollute the water, causing a fatal ammonia increase.

3. Any chance of being able to drive through the night and making it a one-day trip? Anyone else in the car who can drive shifts with you? Back when my family used to go on holidays, my father would drive straight through from Canada to Key West, all 35 hours of it, with my mother only taking a two hour turn in the middle so he could take his eyes off the road. With enough caffeine in your system, anything can be done. :D

I thought I'd post an update on the move.

Everything went great except, uhm this is embarrasing, we never took into consideration the fact that water will move around when being transported! We lost about 10 or so gallons of water that spilt into our trailer. We didn't even make it out of Washington before we had to stop and move all the fish and coral from the two rubbermaids we had them into my Brute water change bucket.

We plugged 2 heaters and 2 powerheads into a 1000 watt inverter connected to an RV battery. The battery and inverter lost power with about 6-7 hours to go before we got to our destination. Fortunately the temp stayed pretty stable and the movement of the trailer made enough waves to give them some water movement.

When we finally got to Colorado 28 hours after our trip started, we needed to move the fish and corals ASAP into the temporary 29 gallon we had set up because my Brute sprung a leak where it has a bulkhead and ballvalve for water changes. It was also pouring down rain as we were scooping the fish and corals out into buckets on the driveway.

All my livestock made it and are in great shape including my RBTA and Hippo Tang which I imagined would be covered in Ich after the ordeal. We lost 1 small chromis that got sucked into a pump after we set everything up in the 29 gallon. Today I'm moving everybody over to a 40 gallon breeder to give them enough room until we can set up the large tank when we make our final move to our new home in the next month or so.

It was a very tough move, seeing as how I had not only my saltwater tank to keep happy, but also dogs, cats, large tortoise, small animals and a cranky husband. I don't know if I'll ever attempt to do a longdistance move like this again with the tank but it definately can be done with some planning and having emergency water supplies on hand like we thankfully did.

Dont feel bad about the spilled water, I moved over the summer, the entire rubbermaid trash can full of water and live rock fell over in the back of the minivan.

Did you consider paying a LFS to just ship your fish to you?