Moving my tank from one room to another.

[mori30]

hello guys im moving my tank witch has been up for a lil over a year. to another room now i know many will say "simple thing",,
'I havent dont it ever, and i wanna doit somewhat the right way , i would hate to move my tank and have things die cause i rushed a step or 2.

now my tank has like a 2 inch sand bed, my sump has like a 4 inch sandbed, i have about 150lbs of lr and its mostly fish in it,, only a few shrooms that have stuck to the LR here and there.

can some one tell me here step by step the RIGHT way to do this or at the very least point me to the place..smile..

any questions in order to help with the answer are welcome.

thanks in advance.

p.s if there is somewhere in the forums explaining this.. im sorry, i searched and dint find it.

 

[mnat]

We have been bouncing apartments for a few years so unfortunately we had to move our tanks a lot more than I ever wanted too. I have never done a tank that big but the theory is the same. With some careful planning and taking it slow it can be pretty easy especially if you do not have a ton of corals (oh we did).

1. Find some containers you can put your live rock in submerged. You want to keep the live rock submerged so you don't have a die off and have mini cycles. Get/borrow a couple of heaters and some airstones to keep the holding tanks up to temp and aerated. This is very important because this process is going to take longer than you would expect and you don't want to stress your fish or your corals.

2. Drain out the tank water into these containers, don't fill all the way up or your live rock will displace a bunch and spill everywhere (Oh yeah lots of towels is important). After you drain the tank and take the live rock out you are looking good. Also make sure you keep an eye on your corals so they don't get buried/smooshed under live rock.

3. This is my opinion but I think it is very important, throw our your old sand bed and buy a new one. You are going to disturb a massive amount of nastiness in your sand bed which means you will have to rinse it with saltwater. This is a long and laborius process and also uses a ton of saltwater to do this which is why I recommend just getting a new sand bed.

4. So now that the display is empty you can work on the sump, same as the display just less volume.

5. Move the tank to your new location, it is nice to have a few people over to help with this btw.

6. Stop and have a beer.

7. Now refilling you want to use some new water that you will have mixed up and had ready to go with some of your old. Consider doing this a massive water change and since you just got your RODI unit setup a way to get a lot of good water into your tank. Some old water is good but you are going to kick up a bunch of gunk when you are moving things around which you don't want to put back in the tank.

8. Fill the tank about half way up with water and then add your new sand bed. You can use a pvc pipe to slowly add the sand as not to cause a huge sandstorm. Also if you want burrowing fish you want to put the rocks down first and then add the sand around them as not to cause an avalanche. Add your rocks and let everything settle down. Fill the tank up to normal and let it settle down. Check temp and basic params to make sure everything is ok and then you can add your fish and corals back in.

9. Have many beers.

Some random things:
Use this as a time to clean your pumps, powerheads, skimmer and what have you. This is the perfect time to do it and if they have been running for a year, they probably need it. This will add time but if you have the storage containers up to temp and aerated then you should be fine.

How big is your sump and how much sand would you estimate you have in there? The reason I ask is you might not have to replace that sandbed if you can move it without disturbing it. Me being a cautious person, I would. Sandbeds if disturbed and if old enough can relase essentially sulphur that will kill everything in your tank and you can't really test for it. This means you could have death in your tank for a long time and have no way to figure out when to add new stuff. I do not have experience with DSB so someone else might chime in and tell you that you are fine.

 

[NikkiT]

As mike and me move our tanks together, i agree with what he said.
Just a couple of other things to think about:
Your corals are not going to be happy about this. They are going to slime up. When that happens, don't panic.
Your fish are going to be a bit stressed - cover the container(s) they go into. They are going to hide from you. Again, don't panic. count critters before discarding anything or allowing anything to go dry; fish and inverts will wedge themselves into live rock when they are scared, and some of them will try to burrow into the sand. This is going to sound silly, but have a checklist of what you need to do and a checklist for livestock so that you can make sure your critters are all accounted for.
In this process, brute containers and spare tanks are your friend.
Don't expect to do this and have the tank look perfect in a single day.
If you need help, ask.
Good luck with the tank move!

 

[mori30]

thanks guys to answer some of the Q:
the sump its 36gal in the refug, section i got about 4 inches if it were a poundage thing i would estimate it about 4 pounds of LS more or less.

its gonna be a bitch to get all them stupid snails out,,lol i got about 2 hundred of them and some of them burrow in the sand,,, sigh,, btw i usually stir my sand bed pretty much at every water change. and i do them once a month,.