My road trip with a 20" Aro and 15" Pleco (Pics)

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cvermeulen

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Jun 4, 2007
1,876
3
36
Los Osos, CA
I'm in the process of moving from Vancouver, BC, to Fort St. John BC. This is about 800 miles northeast, and takes 13 hours to drive on a nice day. I'd never moved a fish that far before, and I was a bit stuck on how to even get started, but I've been thinking about it for quite a while. I'll let the pics tell the story of what I did.

This is a 120L tool bin I got from Canadian Tire a number of years ago. I don't think they sell them anymore, and it's too bad, cuz it's freaking awesome. You can see I cut a couple notches for FX5 hardware to attach.
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Similar Notches in Lid

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6AM this morning. My ~20" Aro (he might be bigger, it's really hard to measure). None the wiser what's in store for today.

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My Pleco from that tank in the bin:

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Most of the water drained. The tank is about 200gl, so this took a while. It was almost 7 at this point.

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The Aro netted into the bin. I was surprised this went pretty smoothly. Last time I moved him it was a gongshow

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FX5 hardware removed from the tank and set in the bin, along with a 200W heater:

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This jury rigged setup in the back of my truck. I'm really glad I didn't get pulled over and have to explain the apparatus:

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Fish in the truck, you can see he lost a couple scales.

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Misc road trip scenery. Transition from pissing rain in vancouver to frozen lakes and snow in the north. It snowed a number of times on the trip, which was a nice treat for late april.

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Roughly 12:30AM (Arrived at 11:30, had to fill the tub and carefully carry the freaking heavy tub into the house by myself)

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Unceremoniously dumped into the tub

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No, it's just there until I get something better set up. I haven't decided if I'm going to just sell the tank he came out of, or try to truck it all the way up here. I have a 600gl tank set up in my garage with a 28" TSN in it... I'm considering putting the Aro in there with him, but I can't decide if it's worth the risk of the TSN trying to eat the aro. Even without the eating factor, both the TSN and Aro are skittish. Putting them in the same tank might have an exponential effect on retarded spaz smashing into the glass injuries.
 
Thanks guys. Everyone still seems happy today, so the worst is over. I'm still afraid the aro is going to jump on me every time I lift the lid though.
 
wat size is that container? (the bigger one)
 
BODYDUB;4098534; said:
Having filtration inside the vehicle was awesome, great thinking...........

Thanks! I was glad I had the FX5 to use for this... it might be more difficult to run a sump!!

The black tub I've put him in says 180gal on the side of it, but I'm not sure at what fill level that capacity applies. It's about 3.5 feet by 5 feet, and 26" tall, so even though it's got less water than his last home, he has a lot more room to swim.
 
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