Evan West
Well-Known Member
Welcome!
Hello all, I am what I would consider to be somewhat of an expert on moving a reef tank. I say this because due to the way my college works I move every 3 months......gasp! yes yes I know bring on the nay sayers! "That's bad for your reef they need stability!".......and yes your right it would be better to not do this but it is possible to do, you should check my build thread, I think my tank is doing just fine (aside from my own stupidity at times) if you ask me
. At any rate I have 3 years of experience moving tanks every 3 months, the first 2 were freshwater and that last year has been salt. I have never lost a fish or coral due to a move and have never caused a tank crash. So then on to the good stuff:Things to Consider
There are a number of considerations to be made here and really this process is only feasible up to a certain size tank and then some of it will become unfeasible so take it with a grain of salt. Also the key is being able to immediately set the tank back up or have a new tank or temporary tank to put your livestock in. You will need to consider:
- Aerobic bacteria need air
- Tank size
- Rock size and number
- Distance of move
- Setup and takedown procedure
- Emergencies
- Ect
So let's get into it.
Aerobic Bacteria!
This is what I consider to be key to moving a tank without crashing it. The bacteria that make up the nitrogen cycle are aerobic and will (like our fish) die without air to sustain them. My rule of thumb is no longer than half an hour for any bio media/live rock without some kind of aeration. This is likely overkill but im taking no chances with hundreds or thousands of dollars of livestock. You will then need to place all this bio media or live rock right back into the re setup system or new/temporary tank to avoid a cycle. So now, you will need a way to aerate the water in your moving containers to keep this bacteria alive. I accomplish this with battery air pumps like this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Marina-11134...245&sr=8-3&keywords=battery+air+pump+aquarium
What you want to do with bio media is place it in a bucket or container with an airstone at the bottom, run the airline through a small hole in the lid and fill the bucket with enough water (tank water) to just cover the media. Then place the lid on running the airline through the hole to the air pump outside. This will ensure your media stays airiated.
For live rock things get a bit more difficult. Often we have coral attached to it and this needs to be taken into consideration as well. Here you will need a container for each piece of rock/every few pieces of rock, that is large enough to accommodate the corals attached to the rock as well. After this is taken into account the same process applies, place an airstone at the bottom of the container and run it out to an air pump. This is one of those things that gets harder the larger the rocks and the more of them you have but if you can't move all your rock wet this will at least let you move some of it.
Note: you need to take note of the air temp where you are, if you are moving in winter and pumping cold air into the water you are going to cool the water to unsafe temps! These containers will need to be in a heated cabin or have heaters placed in them, these are considerably more work to power. You will need a car battery with a beefy inverter to run it or will need to tap into power from the car (easy with a new car with a normal wall plug, just be careful not to overload it). More on temps in another section!
Tank Size
So aside from the obvious fact that you will need to be able to transport your tank your going to need to fill it rapidly when you get to where you are going. What I do and ideally I recommend doing is taking ALL of your tank water with you! This is lots of work but what it allows you to do its simply fill the tank right back up, wait for it to heat up and then you can dump the fish and rocks right back in with little acclimation because it is the same water they came out of. If you cannot take ALL of the water with you try to take as much as you can, then you will need a plan to have salt water available at the new location to refill the tank.
Moving Distance
This is another big thing to consider, if you are moving across the country then well you probably want to pick your favorite coral and fish and take them with you if you can get a setup to hold them at the new place. If you are moving within a day's drive MAYBE two then you should be okay to follow this process with a few considerations.
As I said above you need to consider the temperature of the water the fish and coral are held in, if it is cold out and you are aerating the water then it will get cold quickly and this will need to be accommodated for and this becomes more difficult to do the longer the move, especially if the fish cannot be held in a heated cabin. At the same time if it is 80+ degrees out you need to make sure the fish do not get too hot, the only feasible way I have found to do this is having the fish and coral in an AC’ed cabin.
Also keep in mind you have to take down, move, and set up right in a row! More on that now…..
Takedown and Setup
So the big thing here is that you need to take down, move, and set up the tank pretty much in the same day. If you get lucky with the temperatures and can do an overnight move then you have 2 days but still this all needs to be done in succession. You NEED a game plan, plan out everything we just talked about above, make sure you have enough buckets, bags, and air pumps to move all your fish and coral or all the fish and coral you will be bringing with you. Next walk through the teardown in your head.
For teardown what I do is remove all nonessential equipment and pack it first things like skimmers, lights, dosers, reactors, most or all powerheads, refugium algae, controllers, etc. Now that I have a tank that simply has water, heat and the return pump going I get my buckets ready, you should have already drilled airline holes and gotten all the tube cut and ready. Then I fill each bucket with just enough water to completely submerge the rock and place each piece of rock in its own bucket, then close the bucket and turn on the air pump (now its really game time). After I remove all the coral (i put frags in their own bucket with egg crate to hold them) then I get a cooler large enough to hold all my fish in bags and bag them up placing the bags in the cooler, make sure they are packed in tight enough that they can't fall over (the longer the move the more water and air I recommend you put in each bag).
Once all the livestock is out of the tank then I grab my water jugs and drain the rest of my water into them. Then I take down the rest of the tank and pack everything in my car. Making sure all live stock is in the climate controlled cabin.
Now you are to your new home! Now I take all my livestock inside and then the tank and all the essential equipment (everything that was not taken off before you took the livestock out) and set it back up, this entails the return pump, powerheads, heather and that's really it, you also re add any bio media to wherever it goes now if you have any. Then I wait for the tank to heat up and place all my rock back in the tank, then I dump in the fish as I need no acclimation as I take all my water with. Now you can relax! Now take your time and get all the other stuff set up and running properly and start cleaning up and making sure everything is okay!
Emergencies and Things to Have On Hand
Lets face it thing go wrong from time to time no matter how much you plan! So let's talk about stuff I keep on hand to help. First I always keep spare batteries for the air pumps as well as a spare bucket and fish bags. These things are pretty basic and account for oversights. Other stuff that is good to have includes: Bacterial and Fungal meds, Water Conditioner, Salt, and Extra Heater (this helps heat the tank up faster). In addition to this you need to consider worst case scenarios, what if your tank breaks? It can happen….what will you do? I recommend having enough money to be able to run to a petco or something and buy a cheap tank that is the cheapest you can fit all your stuff in, this will save everything for now. There will be many other things to have a plan for that are unique to you! This all sounds scary but just take a deep breath and try to relax and everything will go just fine!
Conclusion
So after all of that I hope you feel better informed to make your tank move! Just remember to have a plan and consider everything we talked about. Feel free to comment below with questions and feedback and i'll do my best to respond! Please make any criticism constructive so that anyone coming here to learn can learn from it!
-Evan
