moving biocube - need help & suggestions

[jldesign]

ok the time has come to move my biocube 14 tank 30 miles. I'm curious what would be the best bet. 2 fish. loads of corals. tank full of rock. what should I do and not do here to slide it off the stand?

 

thoughts are to remove fish - corals - rock (bag and tub each to reduce stress)

 

empty water to sand height - slide onto a board with helper (is this reasonable to consider?) carry to car. sand bed is about 11lbs I'd guess.

 

reverse order.

 

I'll have 10 gallons of salt water ready at new location. also any tips or ideas to use under the stand on a laminate hardwood floor? or just level as usual and be extra careful about water while messing with it?

 

tanks in advance my search did not produce any good tips.

jld

[TUDIZZLE]

Dive did a move like this not too long ago and it was easier than he thought.

 

Definetly pull as much water as possible. Have plenty of buckets on hand for the LR and the corals. The board for support is a good idea but I think he ended up not needing it. Just make sure you have the location all set up before you start the move.

 

Good Luck!

[monkeytrumpets]

I've moved mine 4 times now (4 or 5). It's really not that bad. I usually just use a couple 5 gallon buckets (mines a BC8). I put about half the water in one bucket with the rock, and half the water in the other bucket with my fish and inverts. I tend to put water in the fish bucket first so there's less sediment and crap floating in that bucket, and it makes it easier to corral the fish IME. While I'm filling the rock bucket, I pull the rock out and put it in the bucket as it's exposed so that it doesn't stay uncovered for long.

 

As far as the corals go, the last time I moved I only traveled about 4 blocks so I just tossed them in the fish bucket, but whenever I've moved it before (90 miles to or from school), I've bagged the corals so I could put them in the bucket with the rocks, without worrying about them getting smashed.

 

The board is a good idea, although I've never used one. Thinking about it though, that may be what I do next time I move it.

 

I tend to try to save as much of the original tank water as I can to put back into the tank, but I usually have several gallons of new water mixed up. I tend to change a gallon or two and call that my WC for the week.

 

That's what I do (for good or ill). I've only lost 2 nassarius snails in all the times I've moved the tank.

 

HTH

Adam

[Longinus]

Heres how I moved my 15g drilled tank (the holes made it a mess cause I suck at plumbing)

 

Empty sump water into buckets till just enough is left to cover cheato (or make some new SW and get all params to match the tanks water)

 

put rock into buckets with tank water in them.

 

drain water out of display down to sandbead into more buckets

 

put fish and remaining non-attached coral into buckets

 

move tank/buckets to new location (in my case 70 miles away)

 

replace some water

 

replace rock

 

replace fish

 

done.

 

One of the key things I think is to make sure everything spends as little time out of the water as possible, and make sure you give the tank a good cleaning or two before the move so that there isnt much dirt to be kicked up.

 

I didn't even take my conch out of the sandbed and it was fine, and I didn't loose anything in the move, so I was pretty excited.

[jldesign]

thanks - the move is saturday. I have another 10 gallon but that is going to wait. I have plenty of cooler boxes and bags I've saved for this reason I guess.

 

my only concern is re-stacking that rock!!!!! it took so long to get just right hahaha

 

thanks for the replies any others please chime in

[gurnie]

Oh! I can help with this (i jsut moved my biocube 4 weeks ago so i can give you some pointers)

 

As the others said get some 5g buckets from home depot (about $4/each). save as much water as you can. Put snails/hermits/ect in one bucket, corals in another (with water of course),live rock in another (with water), and fish in another (with water ), some live sand in a bucket with water.

 

get that tank completely empty. When i moved it we put the tank on a dolly and rolled it down the hall. when we did that we splashed alittle water, but there was only a little bit of water left in the tank.

 

i'd put all the fish/corals in the front seat w/ you (on the floor). I had my tank seat belted in the passenger's seat.

 

got the tank home, put the sand/ water in first. let that settle. add the rock. put in 20% new water (if you have it). Drip acclimate your fish and corals

 

volia!

[jldesign]

with 11# of live sand and barely enough water to cover it (hood removed and everything else as well) - do you think I could slide it on a thick wide board and move to my car? I'd rather not disturb the sand bed that much. I can carry it I'm just not sure how it will work out. I guess at that point I could always just remove all the sand if I have to.

[gurnie]

just take a portion of the old sand, and then mix it with new, washed, live sand

 

you don't want to keep all of your old stuff

[divecj5]

I agree with the others that it's a lot more stressful than it actually turned out to be I stressed over moving my BC29 and it turned out perfect with only a couple of snails being lost in the process

 

Here is what I did and it worked out well for me:

-bought two extra 5 gallon buckets (already had two from salt)

-I thought that I was going to wrap the rock up in paper towel but that got old really fast

-Filled one 5 gallon bucket. Caught the fish and placed them in that bucket

-Filled another 5 gallon bucket and placed the corals and snails in that bucket

-Filled another 5 gallon bucket and placed the corals in this one (I put my smaller frags in rubbermaid containers and it worked perfect

-I then emptied the tank down to the sand level and just left a couple of the larger pieces of rock in there. I really didn't want to have to redo ALL of my scaping

-My dad and I were going to try and put it on a board but honestly that turned out to be more of a hassle. We ended up just picking it up and carrying it out to the car and then out of the car when I got to my new condo.

 

All in all, it is more stressful then it turned out to be. Just take it SLOW and don't rush things. All of the inhabitants will get over it after they are back in the tank. Best of luck.

[jldesign]

update: all is well not one loss. actually I like my new aquascape much better looks more natural with all the little bits here and there that broke off. more random and mixed up.

 

emptied down to just above sand and slid onto a board (not sure if a larger tank would work as easy) ended up with 4 gallons of fresh salt water and the rest from the tank.

 

still took 6 hours to break down and move and set up.

 

PS you'll never get the rock work exactly back in place in such a small tank. keep your critters at temperature and plan ahead.

 

thanks for the tips

jld