Your steps is right here is how I do a move>
I moved my tank 5 times in the last few years the biggest was when I moved from Roodepoort to East Rand and it is not as difficult as it sounds or as people make it out to be. Twice last year.
1. If possible you have to leave the tank on its stand during the whole move. This is important so there is no strain on the glass and it promotes stability and support.
2. Then remove the water and live rock and corals from the tank in to buckets not to big(25-50l). Leave a bit water so the fish still have enough to swim in. This makes it easy to cutch the fish before you transport them. Do this just when you are ready to go.
3. After all the live stock is out of the tank you can drain most water to make the move lighter.
4. Put live rock and fish in separate buckets, just cover the fish bucket so fish think its save and night time and dont expose to sun light.
5. Leave the gravel as you don’t have so much to start off with any way and just leave enough water to cover the gravel.
6. When you get to your new place with the tank just add some of the old water? 30-50% if possible and do a good gravel suction and clean the tank.
7. Make new water to replace the water you used to clean the gravel with.
8. Add the remaining water you have with live rock and top up with clean newly mixed water, don’t change all the water for new (50% max) as it will prolong the cycle. Do this slowly as to try and keep the water as clear as possible so you can do the scaping.
9. Add the heaters, pumps and hardware.
10. Put all the livestock back
11. Put some filter wool in overflow to cutch dirt if any
12. Switch filtration on and give it a few hours to clear/ settle.
13. The system will go in to a mini cycle for a few weeks but you won’t lose anything.
14. It’s that simple.
15. Don’t touch/ fiddle with your filtration system or do as little there as possible.
All this should take about 3hours your fish and corals will survive just don’t leave any buckets in the sun like Riaan said.
You can bring the water to normal temp before you ad the live stock but with the move all the water should be with in range of same temp and fish will be ok if temp raises slowly in the tank. Keep lights of till next morning.
Don’t move at night as the water temp will drop very quickly and that will be a problem getting all the buckets water to more or less the same temp.
I moved my tank 5 times in the last few years the biggest was when I moved from Roodepoort to East Rand and it is not as difficult as it sounds or as people make it out to be. Twice last year.
1. If possible you have to leave the tank on its stand during the whole move. This is important so there is no strain on the glass and it promotes stability and support.
2. Then remove the water and live rock and corals from the tank in to buckets not to big(25-50l). Leave a bit water so the fish still have enough to swim in. This makes it easy to cutch the fish before you transport them. Do this just when you are ready to go.
3. After all the live stock is out of the tank you can drain most water to make the move lighter.
4. Put live rock and fish in separate buckets, just cover the fish bucket so fish think its save and night time and dont expose to sun light.
5. Leave the gravel as you don’t have so much to start off with any way and just leave enough water to cover the gravel.
6. When you get to your new place with the tank just add some of the old water? 30-50% if possible and do a good gravel suction and clean the tank.
7. Make new water to replace the water you used to clean the gravel with.
8. Add the remaining water you have with live rock and top up with clean newly mixed water, don’t change all the water for new (50% max) as it will prolong the cycle. Do this slowly as to try and keep the water as clear as possible so you can do the scaping.
9. Add the heaters, pumps and hardware.
10. Put all the livestock back
11. Put some filter wool in overflow to cutch dirt if any
12. Switch filtration on and give it a few hours to clear/ settle.
13. The system will go in to a mini cycle for a few weeks but you won’t lose anything.
14. It’s that simple.
15. Don’t touch/ fiddle with your filtration system or do as little there as possible.
All this should take about 3hours your fish and corals will survive just don’t leave any buckets in the sun like Riaan said.
You can bring the water to normal temp before you ad the live stock but with the move all the water should be with in range of same temp and fish will be ok if temp raises slowly in the tank. Keep lights of till next morning.
Don’t move at night as the water temp will drop very quickly and that will be a problem getting all the buckets water to more or less the same temp.
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Dude we literally dumped the rocks in, to spped up getting the fish back in, i am sure you will fiddle with it yet.