Moving my 170gal six feet to the left

desertmusky

Feeder Fish
Oct 1, 2008
4
0
1
AZ
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I need to move my tank literally six feet to the left. It is a 170 gal glass tank on a wooden stand. Most advice is to empty the tank as to not affect or damage the structure of the tank and seals. If there is easier way than draining it and also easier on the fish stress wise please advise.
 

Andrew1002

Plecostomus
MFK Member
Feb 29, 2012
3,352
5
53
New jersey
What I would do depending on the size of your fish I would buy a bunch of 5 gallon buckets for like $2 each and i would drain alot of the aquarium water into them then I would leave 20% of the water and take the tank off the stand. It's huge So I would get a couple large men or something and then just move the stand then tank. Fill it back up then re insert fish. But a 180 glass should weigh around 400 pounds with substrate. Correct? So you would definitely need help unless you are one of those huge body builder. Lol but good luck and if you can for aeration I would just throw In a ton of anachris or some aerator plant for the fish in the buckets. Just some thoughts. :) good luck


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PDRed302

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Aug 4, 2011
1,521
90
66
Fort Worth Texas
Honestly I'd remove the fish, plastic containers from home depot/lowes are cheap and can always be used for storage later. I'd drain my tank water into as many containers as I needed to hold my stock, then drain the tank all the way down until just my substrate was covered, to keep the bb alive. If your filter can hold water during the move, that would he beneficial as well, if not, you can always transfer your media into a container of tank water.

In the long run it may take you a little longer to do it this way but the tank will be easier to move and you won't be running as high of a risk of breaking your aquarium.
 

arodini

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Feb 2, 2009
1,016
18
68
ohio
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I need to move my tank literally six feet to the left. It is a 170 gal glass tank on a wooden stand. Most advice is to empty the tank as to not affect or damage the structure of the tank and seals. If there is easier way than draining it and also easier on the fish stress wise please advise.
I'm afraid that there is no other way but draining the tank. I would never want to this size/type of tank with more than 10" of water in it; when you carry the tank with water in it, the water will rock back and forth and make it harder to move. The fish can handle the stress if it's done right.

Get two large trash containers (45g-55g) and a pump. Drain about 90g of tank water to the containers, then move your fish there and set up all you equipments (filters and air) on the containers. Empty the tank, move it, then pump the water and move the fish back to the tank. The fish will be fine in the containers with filtration and air supply so you can take your time moving the tank. That was what I did when I swapped my tanks. Good luck.
 

arodini

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Feb 2, 2009
1,016
18
68
ohio
:popcorn:
Purchase some of those dollies used to move cars around. Drain enough water to prevent sloshing. Jack up each end carefully. Place dollies. Roll into place.

@aquaponicpaw
Thanks for the new addition to my vocabularies "slosh".

Although it's a good idea, tank/stand is not the same as cars - we don't have ground clearance to work with. I'd love to know how you would go about jacking up the tank/stand full of water. How/where do you start? :popcorn:
 
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