Help: Moving cross country. Long post. Advice pls.

[lkoechle]

My husband and I are most likely moving next summer from Denver, CO to Orlando, FL.

 

I grew up there, and housing is cheaper. So it seems to be the best decision for our young family.

 

I have an 85 gallon tank and absolutely do not want to sell the coral (I mean, hello, I have a katropora. That thing stays with me). My husband, ironically, is fine with the idea of rehoming the cat and dog (I'm not, but he brought that up jokingly when discussing this) but not our fish, including our fire shrimp. To be fair to Woodhouse the Fire Shrimp, he is a pretty awesome dude.

 

Soooo everyone is going with us (minus our mandarin who will be rehomed because we cannot guarantee a food source for her and we're probably rehoming my beautiful rainbow BTA because I don't know how well it will travel).

 

That would be:

1 diamond goby

1 scribbled rabbitfish (4 inches or so)

1 McCosker's Flasher wrasse

1 African Cleaner Wrasse

1 Yellow Flanked Fairy Wrasse

1 coral beauty

2 Ocellaris clownfish

1 Fire shrimp

 

And snail CUC + 1 Florida Fighting Conch and my coral

 

The drive is about 3 days.

 

When we are planning on moving, I will have a 2 year old, a 4 month old, 1 greyhound and 1 cat, on top of the reef tank.

 

So we are planning on my husband driving with me to Florida to my mother's where I will set up a couple temporary tanks on her dining room table (much to her displeasure, which I don't get cause she eats on TV trays lol).

 

My husband will leave me, children, and animals and fly back to Denver where he will then drive back with his dad and brother with the UHAUL and his car.

 

The temporary tanks will probably be our 20 gallon long to house the coral and then a 40B or 55 from Petco for the fish. All barebottom since taking the substrate is just asking for bad things to happen. We haven't decided exactly what size tanks yet (here's another appeal for opinions) or when we are going to transport the liverock. I have one massive piece of live rock in my sump that we'll probably take the first trip to seed the FOWLR and then smaller pieces from the display that have no coral attached to it to get the coral tank going.

 

Then, when I have the FOWLR tank set up, my husband is planning on enlisting the help of an LFS to bag our fish and assist in packaging them (just to help make sure we're doing it right). Husband will then overnight the fish and CUC and Woodhouse via fedex where I will drive to the facility and pick them up and then acclimate them.

 

My husband thinks he can transport the coral in the car just fine, I'm a little concerned about having my valuable coral sitting in a lights out environment for 3 days. We also have no ideas on the best way to house the coral for this or if we need an air pump or heater etc. I think we should just ship everything in the tank except for the rock. He doesn't want to spend the money.

 

When we move into our house (who knows when that would be, we're debating between buying or building) we plan on setting up a 150 Cadlights Artisan II since we'll be selling the 85 with stand and sump in Denver. We think its just far to risky to move the tanks and stand ourselves. So as far as temp tank size, it may have to house the fish for up to 6 months. (not likely, because we'd probably be in a rental house at that point and have already purchased and set up the Cadlights, but something to be prepared for.)

 

Thank you for reading all of this. Really appreciate your advice.

 

[seabass]

Air shipping the livestock makes sense for a 3 day move. Good idea about having the LFS pack them for you.

 

I'd probably drive the live rock down there in a Rubbermaid Brute container. You could run an aquarium air pump off of a car power inverter (some run on D batteries) to maintain oxygen levels during the move.

 

Once the rock is in the new tank, your husband can ship the fish and coral to you in Florida. Then you can acclimate them properly. This way your livestock will only be in packaging for a day.

 

As an alternative to flying back to Denver. You might be able to hire the LFS to temporarily house the livestock for a week, then pack up and ship everything (except the live rock) to you.

[braaap]

As an alternative to flying back to Denver. You might be able to hire the LFS to temporarily house the livestock for a week, then pack up and ship everything (except the live rock) to you.

 

Exactly what I was thinking. Pay the LFS a couple hundred to hold your livestock for 2 weeks in a tank. Hell see if you can sell them the tank and stand as payment. Bet they will do it as it is a nice setup. Then your entire family moves everything once and you get down to Orlando and setup the temp tanks. Once they have been up for a week or so with your live rock have the LFS ship and be done.

[lkoechle]

My husband has to fly back anyways. I cant drive straight through on my own while husband drives the uhaul. The youngest baby will still be exclusively nursing so I need to be able to feed him or her a bottle.

 

So flying back is a necessity.