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baker.shawn

Saturday the tank moves!

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by
baker.shawn
, 06-14-2012 at 05:29 PM (7150 Views)
ive basicly summarized how the moving process will work, ive done this mostly for my piece of mind but ive decided to post it here so that fellow reef addicts and possibly offer ideas or advice

Prep
  • 2 buckets of fresh SW mixed (just in case I need more)
  • 50lbs of Precured Marco rocks
  • All dry goods in totes ready to go
  • 3 Styrofoam boxes for livestock
  • 60 large ziplocks + lots of specimen jars
  • Sheets of Styrofoam

Packing – this will start about 6am Saturday morning with a departure time of 9am
  1. Covering the rental van with vapor barrier
  2. Placing the stock tank in the cube van, with the marco rock which has been curing for 2 months in my basement, enough water will be added to cover the rock but not so much that it splashes while on the road
  3. Filling a bucket of tank water for the fish
  4. Removing coral from the tank, each piece in its own double bag ziplock or into specimen jars then into Styrofoam shipping boxes!
  5. Attempting to catch fish , which will all be placed into a bucket with an airline for the drive.
  6. Rounding up snails and such, which will be put in to Tupperware keeping spices separated
  7. Removing and keeping as much non sediment latent water as possible from the display tank and sump into remaining 5gal buckets with lids
  8. Removing live rock, which will be placed in to the stock tank
  9. Catching the remainder of the fish
  10. Disconnecting all electrical and plumbing
  11. Removing sand and placing into buckets (keeping it wet)
  12. Getting everything into the van ( care will be taken with the new aquarium which will be sitting surrounded by Styrofoam sheets
Setup – estimated time of arrival will be 3pm saturday
  1. Everything will be brought inside and placed in my room where the aquarium will be, with the exception of the stock tank with the rock
  2. RODI will be setup and water will start being made
  3. The stand will be placed, centered and leveled
  4. The tank will be placed centered and leveled
  5. The lights will be hung and holes in the wall made for plumbing
  6. Sand will be added
  7. Tank filling will commence, with the old tank water first, a heater will be added ASAP
  8. Once the tank is at an acceptable level the marco rock will be added, followed by maybe old rock if needed (otherwise its going in the sump)
  9. The fish will be added once things look stable (the tank wont necessarily be FULL)
  10. Once I have everything up and running the coral will be added!
  11. I will setup the tank cam with Skype
  12. i will be at the new house untill sunday afternoon to make sure everything is okay then im back to the old house untill thursday.

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‎ Tank Entry

Comments

  1. cyano's Avatar
    how far are you traveling? why not either replacing your sand bed entirely or rinsing and cleaning your sand rather than trying to keep it wet and cycled?
  2. melev's Avatar
    You'll probably want to rinse out the sandbed, as cyano mentioned. It's a big drive, I think he said 600km.

    You may end up with adding the fish the next day after the water has cleared overnight. Be sure to run an airpump and heater in the fish barrel to maintain oxygen and temperature.

    Do you really have to line the vehicle with vapor barrier insulation? Sounds time consuming.
  3. cyano's Avatar
    it is saturday and by this time I expect your probably aquascaping a bit and checking parameters for inhabitants to be dropped in. I hope everything went well and as closer to according to plan as possible. Keep us updated please
  4. melev's Avatar
    .... and we want pictures!
  5. baker.shawn's Avatar
    hey guys sorry for the late reply! more or less everything went....okay, but i will never move an aquarium and livestock on the same day ever ever again.

    we started packing up the van by 8am and didnt have it done till nearly 12:30, we ended up running out of space so ALOT of drygoods and tools couldnt come with us. it turns out the van we got didnt have AC so bytime we got to the new house around 7pm the heat and stress had gotten to me and i definitly wasnt feeling too well

    it took about 2 hours to get everything level and in place, by 9pm i began to fill the tank with sand and new SW bytime i had the tank half full and at temp it was 1am thats when i added the older water, some old sand and all the rock! it was about 3am and i decided to call it a night, the temp was holding about 80 degrees in the corals coolers and the fish were doing okay in there bucket with an airline

    i was up bright an early yesterday to finish the plumbing and add the last buckets of water to the sump, the tank was still cloudy but i had to get going! so all the coral was added, followed by the fish.

    the skimmer was going absoloutly crazy untill about 45min beofre we left with it dialed wayyy down, so here is for hoping it will be okay! i have a hose from the collection cup to a bucket in anticipation of alot of skimate! i lost a couple pieces of coral due to unknown reasons...probabuly sitting in a cooler for 24hrs, i dont have any pictures but i will be back wednesday to take lots and to see if i have a mess to clean up!
  6. melev's Avatar
    Hopefully no surprises will happen while you are so far away.
  7. cyano's Avatar
    honestly that is a heck of a move, i moved my 75 gallon to another room and it took 14 hours and i inevitably ended up losing a couple things. With everything you had to endure and go through for this move I would say any type of loss is to be expected but if the tank is just fine and you keep 80% of your livestock it has been a success
  8. joeogio's Avatar
    wow man that sounds like a pain
  9. baker.shawn's Avatar
    The good news is I have the neighbour watching the tank, he said everything seems okay! No water on the floor as for livestock I'm not sure, but at this point I won't be too upset
  10. baker.shawn's Avatar
    well no water on the floor but....a post is coming!