How the heck do you move a 110 gallon tank!!!?

-I recently bought a 110 gallon established reef tank online with a 40 gallon sump. There are 4 fish in it and 3 corals.
-I'm picking it up on wednesday and have NO idea how i'm going to get it to my house.
-ANY ideas...

 

buckets, bags, and lots of buddies...

I just recently moved and found it not too bad. Try and not disturb the sand if possible and try and keep the rock moist to limit the die off. Also try to keep the livestock in a pail that has a heater and an airstone during the move, esp. if its a fair distance. Plan to save at least 50% of the water if possible.

Best of luck with the move,
Jake

 

I have 30 buckets and two 30 gallon bins(1 for sand and one for fish)
Would you suggest keeping the sand in the bottom or would it be way to heavy

 

I recently moved an established 75 gallon. It wasn't too bad it just took me and a buddy (a very strong buddy) it takes a while though. I just moved the sand in some 5 gallon buckets with saltwater in it to keep it live, did the same thing with the rock.

 

My biggest concern is how long the fish will survive in a home depot bucket.
I mean I live about an hour away.
Breakdown probably 2-3 hours.
Set up Probably 1-2 hours and then the water will be all cloudy from LS.
Who knows how long the water will stay cloudy!!? lol probably like a day.
Can you add the fish when the water is cloudy or would that be bad?
I fear for these poor fish who have to move

 

I just copied and pasted this from another thread. The only difference for you is that you will probably want to take out your substrate and possibly wash it off. That tank will be wayyyy too heavy. You also are going to NEED like 4 extra airstones, the LR will need air.

Make sure you have half of new water ready aerated and heated. This water will be added once you get to your destination. You can probably grab the heater and air stone that you used for this large new water change water and use it for one of your livestock containers. You are going to want one of those car ports to plug your livestock tank into for the move.

Go to Home Depot, buy a few 27gallon long rubbermaids with lids, with your 110g I would buy more of all these totes.

Buy some 5gallon buckets as well.

You need to buy a couple large trash cans with lids...don't worry about the price because you can take all these back the next day. You will probably want to use one of these trash cans for the new water waiting at your new house.

Buy some large plastic bag liners.

Put the bag liners in the totes.

Turn your system off. Siphon half the water into your totes.

Grab the LR and place it in totes, I put mine mostly in the long trash cans. What I didn't do that now I wish I had was baste some of the LR off and try to clean it up. You don't want the LR out of water for too long so be quick if you are gonna baste them off. What I also didn't do was aerate the water in the LR. I think that because of this I had quite a bit of die-off. Overall I lost no livestock in the move and didn't really see any major parameter spikes either. But I am pretty sure that all your beneficial bacteria needs to stay aerated throughout the move. Seems to me that the sump would need to still house some water, but I emptied mine.

Now your tank will look very cloudy and disgusting. Gather all of your livestock and put into the 27g long. If you have lots of livestock you may need to put them into 2 longs. You will then need 2 airstones and 2 heaters...whatever you would use for a 20g tank...pretty cheap. If you have anemones or other corals or things that need to be seperate, this is what the small 5 gallns are for. I put LR in ALL of my traveling containers, especially the one with the fish so they could hide. Also, make sure you have a LARGE fish net. And go to the LFS and grab some fish bags. What we did was have someone holding the clear fish bag in a corner in the tank, then another person led the fish to the bag with the net. The less water that you have in your tank, the easier it will be to catch the fish. The fish should not be in the tank without air for more than an hour.

Make sure the 27g holding tank is ready and working when you put the livestock in. Keep the lights off and keep it covered.

So what I did was clean out all of my substrate and threw it away. When I got to the new house I put the LR in first, then put the new sand around the LR, then when I began to fill it back up I just poured it slowly over the rocks.

I was not prepared at all. I only was able to save half of the old water. I had to run around town like a mad woman trying to buy up distilled water at 11pm at night. So by the time the tank was full and the heat was up to par, the fish were put in there at 3am. We used hair dryers to help heat up the water...lol

Good luck...make sure you have help...it is really not half as bad as it seems, and the faster you can get it done, the better for all.

 

Thankyou overthinker! that really helped me alot.
So i should just rinse the LS? will this kill the beneficial bacteria?
And i'm still a little confused as to when i can put the fish in the aquarium?

 

Well, most of your beneficial bacteria are probably living in the sump. What I would do is empty your sump, load it into the truck, and then fill it back up to wherever the water line was. Just so that the bacteria isn't out of the water for too long. Even though it SHOULD be aerated, this is a hopeless concept. My sump had no water in it for about an hour and a half. I never did see a spike. Although I noticed alot of my LR pineapple sponges died off. They do die whenever they hit air, so there was no preventing that.

Is your sand real dirty? If it isn't then I would just take it out and transport it in another container with water in it. If it is real dirty you could lightly wash it off with cool water, not warm because warm water kills bacteria. Or hot water I should say.

As long as you keep the LR submersed in water and aerated, and try to keep the sump full of water in the trip, then as soon as you set everything back up you can put the fish in. That's what I did. My tank turned out fine even with new substrate and no water in the sump, and plenty of die off on the rocks. I did not clean my rocks off, wish I would have, but maybe this is part of the reason I saw no spike. There is really no way of telling why or how thigns turn out the way they do. Just as long as you keep your fish number 1 priority then everything else should pan out.

Oh, and like I said before, you will proably only WANT to save half of your water, the rest will most likely be murky and gross. Just make sure you buy enough totes for the gallonage you have to move. And have plenty o water preped the day before the move.

 

I moved my 75g back in March...it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Buy yourself smaller plastic totes...30g is still way to heavy (in my opinion) once you add water. I used 4 18g totes that I bought at WalMart for about $4 each. I filled them just under the handles. If you can take with you at least 1/2 your water, then you're good. You will have to drain the tank completely though because if you move a glass tank with water in it, you risk cracking it. I left my sand in it, and it took 4 of us to move it still. I put all my fish/inverts in 1 tote & my rock in the others. Do not throw out your filter media, you'll need this to re-establish the system. I also bought one of those battery operated air pumps...AND due to circumstances out of my control, my fish & rock stayed in those totes for 3 days!! I only had 2 casualties, my cleaner shrimp & lawnmower blenny...I have no idea what happened to them, they just disappeared. I think they jumped out, and my cat got them. Make sure you have plenty of dechlor & salt on hand as well as a hydrometer & test kit...I had to run to my lfs cause I ran out of salt. Also, how are you moving the tank? In a truck? Thats how we did it, so I got some shrink wrap/plastic wrap & sealed the top of the tank during the drive....moving totally sucks, I hope I don't have to do it again for a long while. Good luck to you though, it'll be worth it in the end!

 

Thanks for insight! Much needed and appreciated lol. I plan on renting a hauling truck and moving everything in that. The tank is acrylic so I am not worried about any issues as far as cracking. However, I am a bit concerned about scratching. I know how easy it is to scratch those suckers.
Did you wait until the water was clear before reintroducing the fish and corals and what not or did you just throw them in?
O and I plan on saving all of the water because i do not want to stress the fish and inverts out(i just hope the truck doesn't break down drivin up the mountains.)
Will washing the sand kill the beneficial bacteria?