Moving

[fishboy]

What is the best way to move my fishtank without losing much of the livestock?
Its a 20 gallon, heavily stocked with coral and fish. Ill be moving to toronto, so its going to be about a 5 hour car ride.
any ideas pleassssssssssssssse.

[JetJumper]

What is the best way to move my fishtank without losing much of the livestock?
Its a 20 gallon, heavily stocked with coral and fish. Ill be moving to toronto, so its going to be about a 5 hour car ride.
any ideas pleassssssssssssssse.

Bag the corals / Fish
Place in Styofoam Box
Couple 5Gallon Pales for water
Drive

Replace Sand on other end since its a small tank.

[fishboy]

when you say replace the sand do you mean throw it out?
how come? what about all the good bacteria and such

[JetJumper]

When moving a tank you typically mix up the sand bed release a lot of the trapped organics / etc in there.  It can cause a ammonia spike / nitrite spike / nitrate spike.. etc.. For the cost of a bag a sand its probably better to clean the tank and replace the sand then to have it release stuff and kill everything in the tank.

[Darth]

I agree toss the sand or rinse it really good, but for a tank that size prob just buy a new bag, the rock is going to hold lots of bacteria I moved from NY to ottawa 5 years ago, my fish stayed in a bucket for 5 days so 5 hours is no big deal

[Salt Disney]

I rinsed all my sand during a tear-down.  It's a lot of work and I watched levels for a week after set-up to ensure I didn't have any spikes.  I doubt you have the facilities/equipment to move and stay torn-down for as long as it might take for the sand to cycle.

For a 20 Gal, replace the sand.  But keep the sand, rinse it and try to set it up and test it some time later when you have the time to ensure it won't cause problems.  You might want it in the future, or give it a friend, etc.

[fishboy]

hmmm alrighty. thanks alot. hopefully this all works out. I hope i dont lose anything , so much hard work and money was put into this tank

[percula99]

You will probably have to take the rock and corals out of the tank to catch the fish. When you do this you kick up a lot of detritus trapped in the sand bed and the water gets very cloudy. You don't want to use that water to bag your fish and corals. So, take out as much water as you will need before removing the rocks and corals, put it either in buckets or bags, and put your fish and corals in that clean water for the trip.