moving 75 gallon from one room to the other

[shr00m]

i need some advice on moving my 75 gallon from one room to the other in my house, right now its a well established tank w/ a purple tang, flame hawk , lime green wrasse, watchman goby, and 2 false percula clowns.

80 lbs live rock... a nice rose anemone and thats about it, cleanup crew and stuff

i was planning on just removing rock and submerging in saltwater to prevent any die off... draining water down to sand bed and just moving ... my main dilemma is what to do w/ fish and how long should i let the sand and all resettle after putting the rocks and stuff back in b4 putting the fish in... the tank has been up about 2 years and its really stable, i would hate to screw it up, but the tank has to be moved... we are redoing the living room, walls, floor and all.... the place its gonna be moved to is where its staying....


any help would be appreciated.

 

[Tackett]

when i moved mine this is what I did:

I drained alot of the water from the tank to a large plastic trash can, and put an airstone in it. Then I put all of the rock into the trashcan. (make sure you leave the water level fairly low in the can because 80 pounds can create alot of water displacement.) Then drain some more water into another container (like a 5 gallon bucket) for the fish. I would find other containers for your meaner fish (like the purple tang) and put them in solitary. Drain the rest of the water down to the sand and put it in another trashcan or just dump it if you are going to make more, just makesure that you dont kill your bioload any. Move the tank, (with the help of a few people and make sure to support the middle.) and then put everything back, water and all. Fill the tank up with new water if you dumped the old water that you werent using to store critters in, or fill it up with the old water that you stored in a different container.

hope that helped.

 

[Anonymous]

Don't be too suprised if your green wrasse buries himself in the sand and you can't find him until you get the tank set up again! :lol: I have had them do that to me twice while moving a tank. You try and catch them and they just *disappear*.


I have moved several large tanks and I think your plan sounds fine. Do your best not to disturb the sand as much as possible when you are refilling it. I would get at least some of your rock back in the tank before you refill it, then you can slowly pour the water down the rock. You can also put a large bowl on the sandbed and gently pour the water into there to help prevent the sand from getting all mucked up.

I don't think you need to wait very long for the water to settle before putting the fish back in. I think they will be less stressed back in the tank with murky water than sitting in a bucket, as long as you were careful refilling it and you didn't really turn over your sand.

Be careful the fish don't get chilled during the move, that is one thing that I always worry about.

 

[Anonymous]

For a 60 gal that I have, I drained about 30% of the water, use a car jack to lift the tank up by the stand onto a custom-build dolly, push it to the new location, take the dolly away and lower the stand and put the water back. I did this with myself and a few seconds of time from my wife. YMMV

 

[Anonymous]

How did you brace the stand and get it up high enough to get the car jack under?

 

[shr00m]

thanks for the info, oh yea im expecting the green wrasse to bury himself, he does it every night.... very cool thing... do you think he will beo k in the sand??? i was kind of worried about that... also the car jack thing thats interesting because im moving my tank straight from one room to the other, only about 20 feet away from where it is... but that sure is a lot of weight to wheel around

 

[fishfanatic2]

Another idea is to buy some of those magic-wheel things, the ones seen on TV in commercials that you put on the bottom corners and the object slides around. They work really really well for heavy stuff. JAI

 

[Anonymous]

I posted some of the pics of the moving with the dolly a few years back. Some of you who are familiar with me may be able to dig the thread up if it is not deleted during server cleanups.

The custom dolly need the stand to be jacked up 2 inches for it to slide under the legs of the stand.

One very important thing about moving a tank with any more than a few inches of water in it is the momentum. If you are not careful, you may end up with a broken tank, or injury to people. My tank is acrylic, which help a bit when the tank is accelerated and decelerated during the moving. The Telfon buttons used in the "As Seen On TV" are even more dangerous. You are forewarned.

I have carpet floor, and I move the dolly at snail pace across the room with as constant speed as possible (no rocking or shaking to get the dolly to start rolling) If you see the water in the tank as if a wavemaker is on, you are not doing it right.

 

[Anonymous]

My husband moved our glass 155 bowfront while it was on the stand by putting wheels under it. He fixed some heavy duty castors to a piece of two by four.

Then, he lifted one end of the stand up and I slid the board with the castors on it under one end of the stand. He then drilled screws through the base of the stand through the two by four so it was very secure and attached to the stand. This meant that wheels were under one side of the tank and stand, and he could lift up the other end and shuffle forward with it. This was just moving the tank to another part of the house, not down stairs or anything.

We would have put wheels under both ends but would have needed a third person we thought to get the wheels under the other side as those large bowfronts are so unstable.

This tank empty, just the tank, takes four men who are swearing constantly to move it normaly. I had to leave the room when he was shuffling it along, I couldn't stand to watch one person manage that huge glass tank, and I was too much of a nervous wreck to be assistance!

 

[Anonymous]

The custom dolly need the stand to be jacked up 2 inches for it to slide under the legs of the stand.

How did you get the jack under in the fisrtplace?

 

[Anonymous]

>...How did you get the jack under in the fisrtplace?

Every stand is different, and for this particularly one, it is all empty below the shelf, which gives me 8 inch of completely empty space to put the car jack. Alternatively, you can attach a piece of wood across the stand on the outside if you don't have any space under the stand, and use the wood to attach the jack to.

What I did was similar to LauraD's hubby, except I put wheel on all four corners since I can only hold the tank up for a few minutes, and I wanna take my time.

 

[shr00m]

sounds crazy as monkeys on acid, but i may explore the dolly method.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the new sig line!

B

 

[shr00m]

lol, im blushing.

 

[Anonymous]

I have moved my 55 several times. Save 3/4 or so of the water in something, bucket, cooler, rubber maid tub. Put the fish in one, this is where I use the cooler that has been heated up to tank temp with tap water, rock in another. I simply lifted and end and slid a thick towel underneath the stand and slid it where I wanted it. This was on hardwood floors, if you have carpet you would have to use wheels or the magic sliders.
Once the tank was where I wanted I put the rock back, added some new water, then the old tank water and fish. The whole process takes me about an hour.
Andy

 

[JohnD]

I have to second LauraD's comments about the water temperature.

Many years ago when I moved my 55, I had a small hippo/regal tang. I thought I could do the move quickly, so I never worried about the water temperature. By the time I was done, the temp had dropped big time. The next day the hippo had ich.

This story ended well. I treated him in a Q-tank and learned my lesson. This is the only time the hippo got ich.

I moved that tank in either 1990 or 1991 and the hippo is still with me! :!:

 

[shr00m]

well i did it, i used the big round ez sliders like you can get at home depot.... i took a hydrallic car jack and a 2x4 cut to size and jacked up each side and put the ez sliders under, only jacked up like about 1/2 inch.... i only drained about 5 gallons just to make sure no water sloshed out.... these ez sliders are amazing... jacking up the tank was really easy considering your jacking up the stand and not the tank.... very very easy... i dont wanna say its a good idea or anything but it definitley worked and went very smooth


THANKS for the ideas

 

[Anonymous]

Glad to know it all worked out.

 

[Anonymous]

Glad to hear all went well. I have those e-z sliders under most of my heavy furniture and they work great.