Moving ray tank from house to house

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I moved 4 tanks and 10 rays when we moved a couple years ago. I used Rubbermaid totes with air pumps and didn't worry about heating. Rays can handle room temp (20C) without issues for that time frame.

Here what I did:

Purchased a 400 gallon plastic water cistern to pump the water from the tanks into.

Purchased a plastic garbage can that I put all my filter media in and circulated the water with a FX5 with an air stone.

Scoped rays and placed into Rubbermaid containers (1 per tote) and left on floor with air stone in each one. Loosely placed lid on Rubbermaid and placed a weight (plastic gallon milk jug 1/2 full of water) on the loose lid to prevent jump out. If the rays are in the dark they are less likely to try to get out.

Pumped water from tank to cistern.

Moved tanks and stands to new place and set back up filling with cistern water leaving room to top up with biomedia water from garbage can. Had to repeat a couple times to move all tanks.

Went back to old place and got media, filters and water and set up in tanks.

Went back to get rays and dripped with airline tubes to "acclimate" before placing into tank.

Started at 7:00am and finished 2:00am - 19 hours total. Rays were fine and ate next day. Rays ranged from pups to 15".




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Raymann88 thank you, great post, exactly what I was looking for. Not to doubt you or anything Raymann, but can anyone else confirm not having to worry about temperature for 10 or so hours when moving rays?

The biomedia may be an issue for me, as my bio media consists of a layer of sponges that only get exposure to water when its overflowing, as well as a large chamber of bioballs that when the sump is operating only half are submerged and half are just getting drip water. My filtration never seemed quite adequate to me, however I never get ammonia spikes, my tap water has high nitrates anyway and my rays have always tolerated my steady high nitrates. Believe me, upgrading my filtration is on my to do list, just hard with my current setup because I don't have room to work where my sump is right now, that will change at my new house. Anyway, I think what I will do is fill the sump up pretty high with tank water, run my FX5 right away, and simply throw the sponges in the main chamber of the sump until I am ready to set them up on top of the bioballs. Hopefully that will be enough to prevent any cycle or ammonia spikes, maybe I will purchase the product that T1 was talking about in an earlier post.

Keep the advice coming guys, stress level is reducing already lol.
 
I've received rays that were in shipping for over 40 hours and water temp at arrival was 10C (50F). Rays were all fine and survived.

Generally speaking room temp is around 20C rays will have no problem.

Couple details I didn't mention.

Didn't feed rays for 4 days prior to move to clean their digestive system out.

Used Prime in each tub before adding rays to address potential ammonia. Airstone in each tub will help dissipate any ammonia produce.






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Okay so move date is November 15th. I think I have everything I need in place. Does everyone else agree with not feeding for 4 days? Not to second guess you raymann but I'm a tad bit worried that 4 days of feeding is a lot, don't want to cause further stress and possible weakness. Also, how much prime would you be adding to each tote?
 
Not too familiar with aging, the tap water in london Ontario is pretty good so I don't have problems with that at all. Heating may be an issue though, going to have to try to figure it out. Today will be last night I need them, then Saturday is the move. Unless you guys think i should feed them tomorrow too. So far looks like everything is on schedule, I feel like I have all materials I need and a good plan.

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Tomorrow morning I start my journey. Stand for the sump is built the level below, rays haven't been fed since Monday, going to have 10 totes of water, 6 strong guys, and the old lady helping starting 9am. Crossing my fingers for no hitches. Plumbing will be fun, not. Will be a huge load off the shoulders when all my babies are safe and sound. Thanks for the help, wish me luck.

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