farmerwrx

whats the best way to move them? moving house not far just a quater of a mile up the road,tank holds about 45 litres. thanks

Mice_Elf

I moved my tropical fish from Worcester to Bedford in plastic bags.

Put some tank water in the bag, added the fish, put the airline in to make the bag full of air, tied it off and balanced the bags in a washing up bowl. They happily managed the hour & a half journey to Bedford without a single casualty.

My Plec was too large for any plastic bag at all, so I filled the bottom of a bucket with about 6" water, chased him round the tank for 20 minutes, caught him, plopped him in the bucket and drove him down to Bedford where I unceremoniously dumped him straight into his new tank, without any introdution period, as it's hard to suspend a bucket in a tank....

He survived quite well...grew even bigger and eventually made a similar trip to Peterborough to live in a 20' breeder tank.

pbee

i used my "hospital" tank and a bag, it was just a old plastic tank, that i put cling film over the top.

Keep your filter dirty and save as much of the existing water as you can, this will reduce the disturbance and get the tank back to working order quicker than using everything clean.

pbee

45 litres, is that all, just empty a load of the water and plants, ornaments ect cling film over the top and move it in one go.

I wish i could of done that but my tank is 250litres.

Mice_Elf

Trouble with moving the fish in the tank is that they can bash the sides if the car goes over a bump / round a corner slightly too fast.

If you do decide to do that, remove everything from the tank apart from the gravel. Then when you re-set the tank back up, use the old water if you can, or if not use clean but keep everything else as it. Put it all back as dirty as it was as this will help with the bacteria levels.

Leave them for at least a week and then clean them out as normal.

SiPie

2 skateboards and a plank of wood would be your best bet, avoiding any curbs

On a more serious note, hope the move goes well

Scooby Roo

45 litres, think of it as a 50% water change. Something people with bigeer tanks have to do. But deffo keep the filter dirty as this will keep the right bacteria levels up and the fish healthy.

When refreshing the water obviously treat this and add some Recovery Aid to lessen the stress on the fish.

You coukd carry it round ya lazy git

Rup

Trashman

I'm going against the grain


Keep everything that is presently in water - AND in the water while moving - dirty, everything that is out of the water clean thoroughly INCLUDING the filter. Put new media in the filter when set up at the new house and add some filter start or similar (live bacteria) in. DONT FEED for several days.

Reasoning behind this is the nitrifying bacteria die very quickly without oxygen so the dead bacteria in the filter media (unless of course you can keep it running) and on anything not in the water will actually pollute the tank.

Not feeding will help with reducing pollution until the nitrifying cycle really gets going again.

$0.02

ajm

I see your reasoning, but if we are only talking a matter of hours the bacteria will not die off totally and it will come back much quicker than if you completely purge the filters.


1) keep the filter wet with the original tankwater
2) Preserve as much of the original water as is practical
3) Ask your local aquatics shop if they have any spare fish boxes (these are polystyrene boxes you can put original tank water and fish into that will keep the water warm for hours.)
4) You will almost certainly get a mini spike in ammonia then nitrite until the bacteria gets going again so reducing the amount of food is advisable to minimise this spike. Don't cut off the food supply entirely though, because without the ammonia produced by the fish the bacteria will be starved!