what's the best way to transport live rock

Hello everone.
In a couple weeks Im probably making a drive to get a 90ish gallon tank, Its a 4.5 hour drive one way. What is gonna be the best way to transport the rock and sand. Does it need to be submerged and heated for the trip? And what about any fish that might be with it, what is the best way to transport them? Ill have a 33g qt tank waiting for them when I get home as well. Any advice would be greatly appreaciated.
Thanks all,
Jody

 

I would say submerged would be the best bet for that length of trip. I don't think that you would need a heater unless your car temp is super low. my .02

 

I just transported about 80lbs worth of LR. I used a cooler and a couple five gallon buckets with lids. I'd think you want to keep water in there with them since you're traveling 4.5 hours. My commute was about two hours. Good luck

 

The sand, I'd say would be fine with just about a couple inches of water covering the sand. The live rock (if you can't keep it submurged would be ok out of water as long as damp towels are placed in the container and it's sealed to keep them moist. If your quarantining them anyway, they should be ok. Mixing up the sand like you're going to do will disturb the bacteria and will have to be re-established. You probably would have a mini cycle either way. IMHO a heater wouldn't really be necessary for that trip...as long as you're not going thru a blizzard and it gets cold...which probably isn't happening this time of year.

 

not sure i understand, are you upgrading or starting new? either way i would "seed" it will be more cost effective as well.

by seed i mean get a cup of live sand from either you old set up or your LFS and drop it on your new "dead" sand bed.

same with rocks, aqua-scape with dry and seed with a single LR, sure it might take longer but i think its easier and cheaper no?

if not i guess my advice would be BUCKETS, BUCKETS, BUCKETS!!!!!

 

alot of live rock will be ok so long as it stays moist. you can wrap it in a wet towel and put in a box. no need to stress about heating and cooling. If this is an extablished tank, I would NOT mess with the sand. Too risky as you will be disturbing the sandbed and releasing all kinds of nasty funk. if you want the sand, save a cup or two and then thoroughly wash the rest.

 

Just noticed the question about the fish as well... I'd get a battery powered air pump and put them in a bucket. As long as it isn't cold, I'd say no heater for that... Fish get shipped 24+ hours in a bag and usually do ok...

 

I just moved 9 hours away, and transported all of the live rock from my 75 gallon tank wrapped in newspaper dipped in saltwater from the tank. I had zero die-off, and didn't even go through a mini-cycle afterwards. Even the small patches of GSP and zoas that I couldn't remove from the rock survived the trip. I only had one cooler though, so I put my favorite pieces in the cooler, and the rest went into a large tupperware. I didn't notice any difference in survival between the two though. As long as you keep the car at a nice temperature, everything will be fine. After unpacking, I just dipped each piece in a bucket of clean saltwater before putting it into the tank.

My sand was transported in buckets lined with garbage bags. This worked really well, and since I had the sand out, I took the opportunity to wash it before adding it back in. I kept about a gallon of it unwashed though, just to seed the sand again.

The only thing I might have done differently is use paper towel instead of newspaper, simply because the ink gets on your hands.

*Edit* For the fish and inverts, I picked up a bunch of large-size bags from my LFS (they were about 10 cents a piece). The morning of the move, I disconnected the sump, and treated it with Amquel Plus, because this was the water I was going to use for the fish bags, and didn't see any point in treating the whole tank. Then filled the bags from the sump, arranged them all in styrofoam coolers (I needed about 8 of them at 4 bags per cooler). Then added in fish and corals, labeling the coolers with either F, C, or I (fish, coral, invert). Everything went really smoothly and I had no losses, I highly recommend the Amquel Plus.

Also, I prepared a schedule and a spreadsheet of my critters, so I wouldn't forget things. If you would like me to send them to you, pm your email address to me

 

It would be my first salt tank, there is no lfs in town that has any salt livestock or rock, grrrrr... lol

 

How many 5g buckets would I need for 100lbs of live rock. Would it all fit into a large garbage can?
Thanks for all the info.