Need advice on moving 20+ cichlids

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S

Sub-Mariner

Exodon
MFK Member
Feb 5, 2011
70
6
23
Florida
Im moving at the end of May from Texas to Florida and Im taking my fish with me. My fish are in my sig and most are 3-5". I dont know how I want to bring them with me in my SUV. I have standard 3mil fish bags, Kordon med / large breather bags, Ship Shape, multiple Rubbermaid containers (med - 54g) and 3x-36" styrofoam coolers Id use if I decide to bag each fish individually.

Originally I was going to put them all in the 54g Rubbermaid with a heater and have a AC110 on the end but Im worried about them banging around against the rubbermaid in transit and Im worried about the aggression levels too.

So my next through was use normal bags to bag them up individually. If it was for a few hours maybe, but I dont have access to an O2 tank and 19hrs in the car is too long. I have Kordon breather bags which would be ideal but Im nervous about my fish poking a hole in the bags.

Has anyone here successfully moved 1000+ miles with their fish in the car, if so how did you do it??
 
best bet would be to ship them to your new address or to a friend in florida via over night i wouldnt recommend driving with your fish 1000+ miles...


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I've moved more than a thousand miles with more than 50 fish of all sizes and my advice is to keep it simple. I split some of my fish into breather bags and packed them like I would be shipping them in a styro cooler with dividers between the bags and a heat pack. It ended up being a nightmare. Breeder bags work decently but on a large scale are not worth it. If one fish pops a hole in the bag(or the bags were not dry to begin with then condensation will build up on all of the bags causing them to not work properly. Cichlids are tough fish and will be fine in a cooler with a battery powered air pump and a double dose of amoquel(what I did with the rest of my fish with no issues).
 
Bringing along a little extra water for a partial water change in the cooler about half way through the trip wouldn't be a bad idea as well. The water will go downhill fast as the stressed fish will produce alot of ammonia but it shouldn't hurt them in the long run. Just throw some extra amoquel in after 12 hours or so if you're really worried about it. Also, the heat shouldn't be that big of a deal and a little cooler water is a good thing(more dissolved oxygen for the fish). Just as long as it doesn't get below 70 degrees for too long you should be fine. If the car is about 72 degrees then there should be no problems. Hope this helps as I know how stressful it was for me to move with my fish.
 
Lastly, I didn't do this with my fish but if you have any sponge filters then they would probably work great for this application. Sorry about the multiple posts, I'm just trying to get 5 so I can pm people.
 
if you must drive with your fish this is what i would do...

get a rubbermaid stock tank that will fit perfectly in the back seat or trunk
(if you have a suv/van with a open trunk to monitor) and get or make a lid
for it... cut holes in the lid for tubes and etc... get a car ac power inverter
to hook up a heater and filter & get a battery powered air pump. this should
be everything you need to travel with you fishes. also when filling the tank
i would use half of the tank water that is already cycled. as for water changes
you can stop by gas stations and etc and buy gallons of water and do do wc
each stop or buy a 5 gallon and fill it up repeat each wc.

heres a link if your interested in stock tanks or inverters.

http://www.autoanything.com/Generic...oupID=undefined&ImageID=112728&ProductID=1547
http://www.tractorsupply.com/rubbermaid-reg-structural-foam-stock-tanks-150-gal-capacity-2229919

this just a idea to help you out since this is what i did lol
 
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