Zakary2003
Active Member
To preface, I'm a college student with a 20 gallon cube AIO softie/LPS reef tank. My semester ends next Wednesday so I'm moving back home for the summer. Unfortunately, my parents are also moving on June 19th, so I have to move my tank from Tampa to Jacksonville (around a 4 hour drive) and then again between two nearby places in Jacksonville a month later. I knew that I would have to move the tank once, but I just recently learned about the second move.
My tank has a pair of clownfish, a yasha goby, a 6 line wrasse, a cleaner shrimp, a large bubble tip anemone, various zoas, palys, leathers, clove polyps, star polyps, sympodium, ricordia, duncans, trumpet coral, xenia, and a single head hammer coral. Some rocks are glued together while others are loose.
What's the best way to move everything? I'm currently thinking about putting each rock cluster into seperate 5 gallon buckets and filling it just enough to cover the rocks and coral. Is that a good idea? What about the fish? Should they go in their own bucket, into one of the buckets with the rock, or maybe into bags? Should I keep the clownfish with their anemone or separate then for the move?
As for the second move, I'm considering taking the tank to a friend's house and setting it up there until we are moved into the second house instead of setting it up at the first house. There's a 3 day gap between our move out date at house 1 and the move in date for house 2, so I don't want to have everything in buckets for multiple days. Is this the best course of action?
Finally, what are some steps for reducing stress on the livestock? How do I minimize coral losses? After being in total darkness for a day of moving, do I go straight into their usual light schedule or do I need to reacclimate everything?
I knew this would have to happen eventually and would continue to happen twice every year, but I wasn't prepared for doing it back to back. I have a few more days to figure everything out, so any advice is very much appreciated!
My tank has a pair of clownfish, a yasha goby, a 6 line wrasse, a cleaner shrimp, a large bubble tip anemone, various zoas, palys, leathers, clove polyps, star polyps, sympodium, ricordia, duncans, trumpet coral, xenia, and a single head hammer coral. Some rocks are glued together while others are loose.
What's the best way to move everything? I'm currently thinking about putting each rock cluster into seperate 5 gallon buckets and filling it just enough to cover the rocks and coral. Is that a good idea? What about the fish? Should they go in their own bucket, into one of the buckets with the rock, or maybe into bags? Should I keep the clownfish with their anemone or separate then for the move?
As for the second move, I'm considering taking the tank to a friend's house and setting it up there until we are moved into the second house instead of setting it up at the first house. There's a 3 day gap between our move out date at house 1 and the move in date for house 2, so I don't want to have everything in buckets for multiple days. Is this the best course of action?
Finally, what are some steps for reducing stress on the livestock? How do I minimize coral losses? After being in total darkness for a day of moving, do I go straight into their usual light schedule or do I need to reacclimate everything?
I knew this would have to happen eventually and would continue to happen twice every year, but I wasn't prepared for doing it back to back. I have a few more days to figure everything out, so any advice is very much appreciated!
