# Help, moving a 75 gallon tank



## jrcross13 (Dec 2, 2008)

My lease runs out at the end of May and I have to move my fish to the "babysitter's house" while I go to Korea. I have a 75 gallon and a 29 gallon. I was wondering if anyone knows the best way to move these two tanks and the fish. The move is a two hour drive. I have been saving milk jugs to transport the water (10 Gallons so far). Is there any way to move the tank with water in it or do I need to completely drain it? What is the best way to transport the fish without causing them too much stress?

Thanks for any information anyone can provide. :fish:


----------



## redm18 (Feb 1, 2004)

Just bag the fish and put them in a cooler with some heat packs. You need to drain the tanks but you do not need take any of the water. Just fill the tanks up at the new place.


----------



## lexi73 (May 2, 2008)

I also have to make the move of a 75 gallon to a sublet for only 2 months at the end of may. My drive is much closer at only 5-10 min... The thing that sucks is that it will only be set up for 2 months and then will require another move.

How much water is a good amount to save? I plan on not cleaning anything to keep as much bacteria as possible for the re setup. Should the tank sit without fish in it for any amount of time?

interested in someone posting a link or some more information.


----------



## Art_SouthFlorida (May 15, 2009)

I moved back in December... I have a 90 gallon tank.
What I did was drain the tank and remove all the decorations and bag up the fish. I left the substrate and some water on the bottom of the tank to try and keep my bio-bed alive. This seemed to work. You don't need to leave a signifigant amount of water, just enough to keep the substrate moist and a little swishy. It made the tank heavier, but I hired movers and I told them I'd give em a 50 buck tip if they got the tank there without smashing it 

When I got to my new place, the first thing I did was fill the tank up and set it up. Since I hate keeping my beloved fish in bags for any length of time, I did this before unpacking anything. I didn't have any casualties. Fish I transported were a 9 inch common pleco, a 4 1/2 inch frontosa and 3 purple ascei. They are still doing well 6 months later and have plenty of new tankmates 

Hope this helps.

- Art


----------



## jfly (Feb 17, 2009)

just leave a slight amt of water in the bottom.. just enough to submerge and keep youre filter pads wet.. keep youre bacteria.. other than that water isnt crucial (according to this room), but i do try and use water from water changes in established tank when setting up a new one.. heck it couldnt hurt


----------



## jrcross13 (Dec 2, 2008)

Thanks for the quick replies! The amount of water to be left in the tank was what I was most concerned about! Other than putting them in bags, is there a good way to move the fish? If Bagging them up is the best way, is there any bag that is better than others? Or can I just use 1 gallon ziplock bags?


----------



## kjhydock (Apr 28, 2009)

If you have room, you can put them in rubbermaid bins or anything else similar to it. They have their ups and downs when compared to bags, but whatever you're more comfortable with. Heck, you could even do both for redundancy.


----------



## Art_SouthFlorida (May 15, 2009)

I used 1 gallon ziplock bags to transport my fish.


----------



## jstntlvr (Apr 20, 2009)

Personally I would go with a rubber made container with a power head running through established sponge filter plugged into a sig lighter adapter. put the substrata into 5ga buckets with some tank water. do the same with your filters. this will make your tank as light as possible to move and give every thing a good chance of survival (I helped to move a 180 and leaving 100#s of granite and nearly 200# of water in it to keep every thing covered was not an option with only 2 ppl moving the thing Rob and I are big boys but not that big)


----------



## RyanR (Apr 29, 2008)

Definitely break the tank all the way down if you can.

LFS store owner shared a story of some college kids moving a tank, part-full. tank broke, and serious injuries.

-Ryan


----------



## Bashiba (Feb 28, 2003)

I have moved several large tanks that were setup, and each instance I brought as much of the old water with me as I could realistically haul and save, I would be afraid to shock the fish with to much new water, especially since the water parameters could be much different at the new place.

The fish in a good sized cooler should be fine for the amount of time you are talking about. I wouldn't worry about running a air pump or anything like that.


----------



## mthigpen_02 (Dec 29, 2008)

You can always buy the Bait Buddies and drop the tablets in the container. I just moved 13 tanks last week using them in a rubbermaid container. I drained the tanks to just enough water to keep the sand wet. I filled a 10 gallon rubbermaid container to transport all filter media as I didn't clean it before the move. One of my tanks was a 125 but 2 of us was able to move it even with the 100 pounds of sand extra.


----------



## jrcross13 (Dec 2, 2008)

I bought a 14 gallon Rubbermaid Roughneck container to transport 6 fish and 2 plecos. I cut a small hole in the top to run an air hose through. I am not sure how long it will take me to set up the tank at the babysitter's house so I want them to have as much air as possible. Thank you to all who gave me advice!


----------



## HONDO (May 4, 2008)

my lfs gave me 3 cooler boxes is fish come in. i bagged the fish in those with tank water, drained all but a little water, moved it all and set it back up. it sucked but it was pretty easy. no unexpected disasters.

keep your filter media in tank water for sure. you dont want that to dry up and kill off the good bacteria.


----------

