Moving 4hrs away with fish/plants

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jaws7777

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Mar 1, 2014
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White house 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington
Guys this is a little premature buy i want to be able to plan this out waaay ahead of time. Some time this coming year i may be moving to delaware. The drive is about 3.5 to 4 hrs. Has anyone moved their fish that far ?would love to hear how you did it.

Im thinking i would have to time everything perfectly with the moving company. Questions :

What do i use to transport the fish and plants ? I guess Buckets with battery powered air pumps but what do you do about the gradual temperature change while transporting them ? Also can i cover the buckets with lids and just cut a whole out for the ariline tubing?
Do they make boxes for this purpose ?
For Plants attatched to dw i guess just need a bucket or conatiner big enough to keep the plants submerged.

I have an eheim 2262 im thinking i could remove all the foam pads and fill the can up with tank water (leave the bio in) will the bb die off if i trans port like this ? Would no water movement/oxygen kill it off ?

Bio from my hobs just put in a bucket with tank water and an airpump?

Any suggestions are much appreciated
 
Idk how big your fish are or how many you have but you could use those styrofoam coolers to transport the fish with the battery powered aerators I think those would help the temperature stay the same. I would just use buckets with lids to keep a good amount of tank water so that you don't have to restart everything. I'm not sure about the BB but I think it will be fine
 
Fish arent too big now but at the time of the move i guess they could be bigger. The biggest i forsee are a pearsei (8sih inches now) and a couple of birchirs (7ish and 6ish inches now) everyone else is on the small side.
 
4 hours drive or more is not really matter for fish if you keep them in styrofoam box, the water still loss temp overtime but it won't shock your fish. I think you will need couple hours to get thing down/in new house and set them up +4 hours drive, I would guess your fish won't be in their tank until 7~10 hours later, with that long hours your BB in filter might not survive though but nothing you can do but hope some of them still alive so get some BB bottle ready and abuse it :p
Edit:
1 fish per box do not put them together.
 
Thanks yuki.....what if the bb was put in a large bucket witj an air pump ?

I guess a few bottles of safestart on hand would be prudent
 
When I moved 8hrs from Wisconsin to Ohio, I used a inverter to run air pumps to four buckets, three with plants and discus and one with driftwood and my canister filter running on it. The tank had all the gravel still wet.
 
When I moved from Detroit to the Northern Lower (four hours) here in Michigan I made two trips. I set up some tanks to receive my fish when I made the final move. Just bagged up the fish like you would at a shop and drove them to our new location. Not a big deal at all. My biggest fish was a 14" Jaguar who got a heavy bag in a styro box. It is a good idea to not feed for a couple of days before the move no matter how you do it. Good luck!
 
Belly up said:
When I moved from Detroit to the Northern Lower (four hours) here in Michigan I made two trips. I set up some tanks to receive my fish when I made the final move. Just bagged up the fish like you would at a shop and drove them to our new location. Not a big deal at all. My biggest fish was a 14" Jaguar who got a heavy bag in a styro box. It is a good idea to not feed for a couple of days before the move no matter how you do it. Good luck!
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Not feeding for a couple days prior is a great tip! I'd even wait a day to feed also, keeping your bio together with an air pump will help.
 
My family moved 6 tanks from Baltimore Md to southern IL. What we did was put the large Tilapia Butterkoferi in a 5 gallon bucket with a battery powered pump. For the other fish we paid a lfs to bag each fish individually and oxygenate the bags. From there they were packed in styrafoam containers and transported in the back seat of the car.

Once at the new home the first task was to set up the tanks. There were no casualties in 5 of the tanks however the change of water chemistry absolutely devastated my Lake Tanganyka tank. :(
 
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