moving tank with fish in it?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
One big thing you gotta do is keep the beneficial bacteria alive in the filters. If possible use them with the buckets and containers. Depending on the filters it could be easy, hang-on back power filters usually fit perfectly on rubbermaids.

The shifting of water weight in a glass enclosure can be very risky and dangerous.
 
I've seen the bottoms of tanks crack simply under the gravel's weight. Granted, that person had WAY too much gravel for the tank.

Any time I've moved a tank, I take out everything. I have several rubbermaids that I'll drain the tank water into, then transfer the deco into those. I try to reserve 1 or 2 buckets with tank water for the fish, then when re-assembling, I will throw out the water from the buckets with the fish, just to eliminate any waste/amonia spikes that could have developed while taking the rest of the tank apart and reassembling.

I know it's more work than what everyone else has suggested, but I have yet to lose a fish from this method. plus, the tank is that much lighter when carrying.
 
Each inch of water in a 75g tank with a 48" x 18" footprint weighs 32 pounds. The weight can shift very quickly also so moving the tank even with 5" of water can be a disaster.

What type filters will you be moving? Keeping the biomedia wet and from getting to cold should be only real worry(other then the fish).
 
just make sure when you fill it back up to cechlorinate and let it run for an hour or so before you add your bio media back. the chlorine in the water will kill it all if you dont
 
i use biowheels and i leave hem in a bag of old tank water while my tank runs with stress coat for an hour, then i add the wheels back
 
I recently did a tank tear down and I just put all the fish and deco in a rubbermaid and then mounted and ran my filters on it. Worked great!
 
i cracked a 10 gallon by moving it with only 5 inches of water and fish. drain the tank!! and i agree with the rubbermaid idea; that's how we've moved fish before, with huge success.
 
No........to leaving water in the tank, while moving the aquarium, taking a chance.
 
do i run any risk with taking all of the water out? like looseing bateria and such?
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Just look after your filters, make sure they dont dry out or stay switched off for too long. It may be practical to run them in the tub that the fish and water are kept in, but if the move is fairly quick they will be OK as long as they dont dry out.
The filters is where 90% of the bacteria live, so take care of them. The water doesn't really matter, if you have to dump half of it then it's only a 50% water change.

Cheers

Ian
 
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