Moving soon - need ideas

[Octoman]

I'm moving way up the Eastern seaboard in a month. I'm trying to lay down a good concrete plan for moving the tank. I hope to make the trip in one day, but there's a chance it will be broken up into two, so I need to plan for a possible 48 hours.

Here's my plan so far...

Fish - go in 20 gal rubbermaid trash can with battery bubbler
- lawnmower blenny
- longnose hawk
- watchman goby
- mandarin goby
Corals - some in trash can with fish, not much because I don't want crap shifting around and killing fish, maybe a single layer of rock all squished together in the bottom of the can.
- the rest in buckets, secured in place with styrofoam
- Should I put more bubblers here?
Rock - in buckets with water
Sand - kept separate, will be cleaned before adding back to tank.

When I get there, I'll probably just set up the DT and put the fish, rocks, and corals in with a heater and a couple powerheads. Lights, sump, and everything else can wait until we finish unloading the truck.

My concerns are
- temperature during the move, especially if we stop for the night. I could put the fish in a smaller bucket so we could bring them in the hotel room for the night, but then I'd be concerned about ammonia and O2.
- minicycle on the rock
- xenia funk - the goo that comes off when it gets mad. I'm thinking about getting rid of most of the xenia to avoid this nastiness. It comes back pretty fast anyway.

Any ideas, anything I'm not thinking of?

 

[BigAl07]

I'd ditch the Xenia or keep it totally separate from everything else.

hmmm the heater thing... any BATTERY heaters available?

 

[ReefLady]

Wow, that's a tough one. I remember just moving the tank from one side of the room to another, and that was an adventure of many hours. I'd almost play with the idea of bagging/boxing the fish and corals and shipping them to myself. That's a tough long transport. It's going to be difficult to keep temp and pH stable.
The hardest part (I think) is going to be the setup when you arrive. Just setting up the tank, getting water, rocks, and sand in is probably going to be several hours before things settle enough to add sand/coral. Are you going to be able to have enough extra water / water change water on hand when you get to your destination if needed?
How far up the eastern seaboard are you moving? Coming to chilly New England? ;-)

 

[Clownfish518]

Heating is simple. Get those handwarmer packs for football games. Tape them with duct tape to the outside of the bucket. Up here in the great white north, we put them in double ziplocs and float them in tanks during power outages, but that could be too much for the transport containers.

 

[Travelin Reef]

octo,
reeflady is on the correct path. water does not travel well, (spish splash)
I have moved my 125gal 3 times more than 1500 miles one time hense my
name Travelin Reef. Find a store to hold all living creatures, fish, corals, sand
everything. Transport only hard-ware. I sold my AGA tank for $100 and bought a new one when i got to my location for $400 worth the $300 cost to me to not worry about breaking the tank. When i got to my new location i set up the tank added the water and a few local coral 1/2 the total amount of sand i would eventually want and went through a cycle. When all was well, we started shipping my original stuff; a little at a time. Cost to do this with the new tank and holding and shipping fees from the LFS apx $600 but it was very successful, and allowed me to keep the system I know best and the creatures I have had for a long time. Good luck with the move, it's a challange but can, and has been done successfully by others. Plan it out very carefully.