Need advice moving reef to new home

[morg59]

Hello.. Im just now moving into my new home and I am going to have to move my 1.5 year old 75 gallon reef. I was wondering if anyone might have any tips to give me on how to do the move. The move is only 5 miles from my current home but I am nervous and dont want to lose any of my critters... If there is anyone else out there that moved their tank that can give me some do's and dont's I would appreciate it...

Thanks in advance

 

[Anonymous]

Hello Morg59jeep, and welcome to Reefs.org. :wink:

Your in luck. I recently moved my 2 year old 75G. Hear is a thread that I started for suggestions when I moved mine.

There are other threads regarding moving tanks. Just do a search.

Feel free to ask any more question in this thread. Keep us posted on your move.

Good luck!

Louey

 

[CAT]

I moved my small tank (5 hour drive) about 8 months ago. 3 suggestions: lots of make-up water ready to go in the new place, lots of extra buckets, and don't mess with the sandbed - so lots of strong backs.

 

[danmhippo]

A couple points to add onto Louey's thread (some may have said already......)
1. Prepare water at the new location days ahead and make sure SG, pH, alk, and temp all pretty close to your old tank water.

2. Siphon out 25Gal of the 75 and keep that till filling up after the move. discard the rest as much as you could. This is a good chance to siphon out the accumulated detritus too.

3. Make sure you do not distub the sand bed. Whatever you do, do not disburb the layers. Lay plastic sheets onto the sandbed, weigh them with rocks, to hold in place, then move it.

4. Good Luck.

 

[Marrowbone]

I personally am not convinced that the sandbed is something that must remain undisturbed at all costs. When I eventually move my 75 (and even my 30 with the real DSB) I'm going to take the sand out. If i remember, the 75 clean and dry was already quite heavy and cumbersome to move. Leaving anything like 100 lbs of wet sand in it is going to stress the tank as it's jostled as well as the people carrying it. At most I'll drape a wet towel on the overflow wall to try to preserve the corraline and star polyps encrusted there.

I'm going to make the sand the last thing to be removed from the tank and the first to go back in. Scooping the sand and moving it into buckets will disturb the anoxic layers for sure and release trapped gasses that could be toxic for the brief period of time before they dissipate into the air, but if the inhabitants are out of the way, I don't think this should cause problems. Now, when I put the sand back in, all the layers are going to be mixed up. Some stuff that was on top of the sandbed will end up on the bottom and likely die, but much will survive. Also I believe that the new bottom layers will quickly develop anoxic conditions due to the lack of circulation through all the dense sand (southdown). At least, this is what I'm hoping... :lol:

 

[danmhippo]

It's the bacteria die-off that you should worry about.

You originally have X amount of aerobic bacteria and Y amount of anaerobic to process Z amount of waste.
After disturbing them, you are left with (40% X) amount of aerobic bacteria and non (0% Y) of anaerobic bacteria, but your tank still need to process Z amount of waste level.

Good luck to you.

 

[Marrowbone]

I would agree that with disturbing the sand bed, anaerobic bacteria is going to die off, but how much? Is it really going to be all of it? How quickly can it rebound? I would try to preserve as much as possible by transporting the sand in deep buckets to minimize it's contact with the surface. Also, with ample live rock there should be anaerobic areas that remain relatively undisturbed. Isn't the anaerobic bacteria taking care of the final stage of the nitrogen cycle? It's the aerobic bacteria that are on the front lines, consuming the more toxic ammonia and nitrites that will appear first as new waste is being produced. I'm no expert on this, I'm just looking for feedback.

 

[reefNewbie]

i think that another problem will also be with all of the fauna in the top layer of sand. If your scooping out the sand and dumping it into a bucket, all of the fauna will be crushed and killed!

 

[Marrowbone]

Some killed? Sure. But all killed? I'm not so sure. These are creatures that live in the sand. Though it might also be helpful if moving the sandbed to scrape the top layer off into a separate container to aid the creatures that dwell near or on the top.

 

[fishfarmer]

I prefer to scoop out the upper layers of live sand and toss the rest. Then add the new sand and the upper layer of old sand for seeding the new bed. If using a cheap sand like southdown, the cost shouldn't be high.

 

[baseman]

Fishfarmer - that sounds like a good idea. I know you would lose the anerobic zone, but you would probably lose most of that anyway if you saved all the sand. I have 210lbs of sand in my 75g. I would not feel comfortable putting that much stress on the tank joints.

 

[Jrsydevi1]

Off topic here..

Hey Marrowbone.. is that a Barb Warrior pic under your name?

-Devil

 

[morg59]

About the sand bed... The sand bed in the tank is only 3.5 inches and it is constantly stirred up by my yellow watchman goby and his little shrimp worker. I also have a burrowing starfish (sandsifting star?) that is always stirring things up. I do have an 8inch sandbed in my sump/refugium that I am planning on not disturbing. Does this change anything?

 

[CAT]

I did not disburb my sandbed and I was able to put everything back the same day. No problems at all.

If you have to move the sand, I would take the first inch or so, keep that and put new sand in the new tank with the old 1" layer on top. Southdown is pretty cheap if you can get it and would save potential problems, especially if you run into trouble and don't have other tanks to transfer the inmates to. Less risk since you don't know how much die-off you might get from the deeper layers.

 

[Marrowbone]

...off topic :roll:

... is that a Barb Warrior pic ...

Yup, you got it. He was a mule I made so I could try on the pale blue fine steel plate my shaman had made. This guy's name was Blitzed and he was working on his alcohol tolerance last I played him. 8)

 

[Jrsydevi1]

Cool, What server you on? I have a 58 Monk on Nameless..

-Devil...