Help me move my nano reef tank

[DonJuanAntwon]

Hey all,

I’m a newbie reefer that could use any insight/advice. I’m moving from Tennessee to Florida and I’m moving my 10 gallon nano reef tank (thank god it’s small) with me (13 hour drive). I’m not as worried as I thought of be as I had a 24 hour power outage this year and was able to keep everything alive with battery powered air stone and wrapping my tank in a blanket (tank temp got to 65F). Reef tank is about 11 months old and doing great. I really don’t want to sell and start all over.

-Fish/inverts: two clowns, sharknose goby, yasha goby, and a yellow striped Pygmy wrasse, tuxedo urchin, tiger conch, skunk shrimp, and assortment of snails

1.) My plan is to get three 5 gallon buckets (w/ tops and holes) fill them with tank water. All my live rock / corals in one, all fish /inverts in one, and a third filled with salt water just in case. Any special thoughts how to separate them? I plan to keep the corals on the rock and glue them into the bucket so they don’t move around or topple over. Every bucket will have a battery air stone.

2.) what should I do with the sand? My plan is to clean it in a bucket and put it back into the tank and transport it in the tank with a little salt water and reuse it.

3.) I have two extra 5 gallon jugs of ready to go salt water

4.) I plan to break it all down early in the morning and hit the road, 13 hours straight and immediately set it all back up in our new house.

5,) what should I do with my filter (coralife) and skimmer (bubble magnus qq1)? Take the bio media out and place it in the fish bucket? And throughly clean both?

I’ll take any advice/thoughts I can get! Thank you all!

 

[tmccaff]

don't reuse the sand you can use about a cup of the old sand. The other stuff sounds good. Why you using a filter? Don't you have rock?

 

[DonJuanAntwon]

don't reuse the sand you can use about a cup of the old sand. The other stuff sounds good. Why you using a filter? Don't you have rock?

I have rock. In the filter is a small refugium with small amount of chaeto. Kind of like the DIY aqueon filter refugium. It’s also where I put my small bag of chemipure blue and small phosphate filter.

 

[aSaltyKlown]

Why you using a filter? Don't you have rock?

The filter is generally used for particulates, running carbon, and other media.

I would not worry about doing anything with the filter or skimmer. A chance to clean them up. The skimmer will need to break in again.

If I were moving a tank, I would reuse the sand. I have done it many times with no issue. Just rinse it very well with tap water. I generally rinse in a 5g bucket and rinse it until the water is clear. Don't worry about rinsing in RODI, the little water there won't make any difference. I also would not put it back in the tank with saltwater for the trip. Putting it back in the tank is fine I'd leave out the SW.

 

[brandon429]

If you use a cup of old sand to seed the new, you risk killing all your fish. Source for claim: page one, tank transfer thread.

Instead of gluing live rock in buckets, use wedges of styrofoam to lock them into place

Rinse the sand for hours in tap water, so you have unlimited rinse supply, until it's fully clean. Do final rinse in saltwater to evacuate the tap. Transfer that wet lump of clean sand, use it. Transfer zero unrinsed sand for the safest move documented out to fifty pages in the rinse and transfer thread.

 

[DonJuanAntwon]

If you use a cup of old sand to seed the new, you risk killing all your fish. Source for claim: page one, tank transfer thread.

Instead of gluing live rock in buckets, use wedges of styrofoam to lock them into place

Rinse the sand for hours in tap water, so you have unlimited rinse supply, until it's fully clean. Do final rinse in saltwater to evacuate the tap. Transfer that wet lump of clean sand, use it. Transfer zero unrinsed sand for the safest move documented out to fifty pages in the rinse and transfer thread.

Thank you! I gotta find that thread

 

[brandon429]

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

The best way to prepare your sand for use in a transferred reef tank, an upgraded reef tank, a reef tank under invasion etc is to put the sand in sections in a bucket and TAP WATER rinse it outside over and over with the garden hose until all the silt / waste is ejected, expect hours of work per...

www.reef2reef.com

The truth is hundreds and hundreds of people seed with old sand it's probably 98% safe but not 100, the 2% are the few losses on page one

 

[DonJuanAntwon]

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

The best way to prepare your sand for use in a transferred reef tank, an upgraded reef tank, a reef tank under invasion etc is to put the sand in sections in a bucket and TAP WATER rinse it outside over and over with the garden hose until all the silt / waste is ejected, expect hours of work per...

www.reef2reef.com

The truth is hundreds and hundreds of people seed with old sand it's probably 98% safe but not 100, the 2% are the few losses on page one

What your thoughts on trying to control temperature on the 13 hour drive? Try to get some type of heater or just closed lid with hole for battery airstone?

 

[jkcoral]

Your corals will fare better being cold versus overheating. When I made a similar move a couple of times years back with a 20g tank, I had a separate cooler that had some bagged up ice in it (and drinks+snacks) that I could put in the water if it started to get too warm.

The last time I made that move I had basically the whole 20g tank in a 40g cooler and brought 15g of fresh saltwater. I just swapped 5g of new water every 4 or 5 hours when stopping for gas (and run an air stone the whole time). The cooler was in the cabin of the car, so the temperature was much more stable than I experienced when I transported it in bed of my truck.

 

[brandon429]

I moved my nano that far. what I did:

went to pet store got a styro container with press fitted lid, they get inventory in these/free given to me

cut a square hole in top, to fit a bubbler and a heater, cut notch in the square that came out of the cut hole

insert bubbler silicone hose and a fifty watt heater, same one that ran my nano, insert the cut square back in tightly and the hose/ac line through the cut out in the square, tight fit so no spills while turning. that container is now a mobile nano reef.

get a car inverter to run the heater and air pump, or use battery air pump for bait wells from a fishing shop. I input my frags and pressed in squares of other styrofoam inside to press against them so they wouldn't roll around, filled with water =transport. I rinsed the sand perfectly before the move, shown above.

take to new home, reinstalled everything in place as a skip cycle transfer.

 

[DonJuanAntwon]

I moved my nano that far. what I did:

went to pet store got a styro container with press fitted lid, they get inventory in these/free given to me

cut a square hole in top, to fit a bubbler and a heater, cut notch in the square that came out of the cut hole

insert bubbler silicone hose and a fifty watt heater, same one that ran my nano, insert the cut square back in tightly and the hose/ac line through the cut out in the square, tight fit so no spills while turning. that container is now a mobile nano reef.

get a car inverter to run the heater and air pump, or use battery air pump for bait wells from a fishing shop. I input my frags and pressed in squares of other styrofoam inside to press against them so they wouldn't roll around, filled with water =transport. I rinsed the sand perfectly before the move, shown above.

take to new home, reinstalled everything in place as a skip cycle transfer.

Thank you for all your help! Is it a long enough drive that you would add seqchem prime and stability to the fish/inverts container?

 

[iamacat]

Forget the sand just buy new.

your inhabitants all survived many hours in transport much greater than you will be doing. As long as you don’t blast them with AC or heat you should be okay. I would aerate the water in the buckets with a turkey baster each bathroom or food stop.

 

[brandon429]

dont use prime in reefing applications, it's shown to be useless/made up/does not remove ammonia see chem forum threads on it by user Taricha

if I was transporting fish, they'd have a separate lidded tote/transport container with the same setup bubbler and heater. there's a few different ways to keep their ammonia from building up

-have a large live rock mounted well, won't roll around, cleaned off so it's not got detritus stuck to it, affixed into the transport container as a mobile filter. that will handle a lot of ammonia
or
-keep them in clean saltwater, but occasionally dose biospira or Fritz refrigerated/expensive cycling bacteria which eats up ammonia dosed into the water. have a seachem ammonia alert badge inside to see when to change water for ammonia rising, if ever. carry spare clean water for emergencies
or
-place a bunch of already cycled matrix balls/filter material balls, all inside the flooring of the transport container and dose a little fritz or biospira along the way, do a small water change halfway through the move.

 

[DonJuanAntwon]

Thank you for all your help! Moved my tank from Tennessee to Florida with no casualties and rip cleaned the sand like you said. Tank looks great and corals are looking really good! Thanks again.

 

[brandon429]

Hey how did you move the fish and keep them ammonia free

 

[DonJuanAntwon]

Hey how did you move the fish and keep them ammonia free

I put some prime into the container I had them in and I put some biological ceramic I had in my coralife filter in there

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

If you are stopping near me, I'd be willing to help expedite your set up. It won't be fun after a long drive. Or at minimus say, if you need anything to get your tank in a safe place, can't get to something, whatever, message me and let me know I'll see what I can do.

If you aren't stopping in Jacksonville, good luck. The stress is worse than the move.

 

[DonJuanAntwon]

If you are stopping near me, I'd be willing to help expedite your set up. It won't be fun after a long drive. Or at minimus say, if you need anything to get your tank in a safe place, can't get to something, whatever, message me and let me know I'll see what I can do.

If you aren't stopping in Jacksonville, good luck. The stress is worse than the move.

I really appreciate the offer! It means a lot. I got it set up right away when I got in last night. Luckily it’s a small tank but I plan on upgrading to a larger one soon.

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

Good to hear!