moving plans... advice pls

SO, as some of you know, I'm moving from Oregon to Seattle in about a month. I intend to move the tank as it is, and set it up at the new place. Obviously that takes some planning, so here's my plan as I've devised it at this point. I would appreciate any ideas/advice/opinions.

1 week before (8/13): 30gallon water change, assemble new (drilled) sump, make 150gallons saltwater at the new house in 4 giant trash cans appx 2/3 full.

Wed 8/18: Drive up to Seattle to swap my tiny car for an SUV, and pick up the 2nd driver.

Thurs 8/19: Drive back to Oregon, finish packing house shit, leaving the fish area completely empty

Friday (MOVING DAY): Early AM, fish tank packing begins. First, remove the rocks that have corals/sponges permanently attached into 5gall buckets and/or rubbermaid totes. Also, bag up any unattached corals. Then, catch as many fish as possible and take the remaining rock out. Place base rocks into styrofoam coolers with wet newspaper. Capture all other fish and inverts, bag them up, and store in styrofoam coolers. while livestock are being rounded up, take down the sump plumbing. drain most of the water out, then stir up the sandbed and siphon out the sand into 5g buckets.

Truck loading: the tank will go in the "mom's attic" space of the uhaul, and be roped in thoroughly. Then the mattresses (2 queens) will be placed against that part of the truck, and roped into place. That way I hope it prevents anything from sliding into the tank and smashing it.

Load up all the other house stuff. Drive 5 hrs to Seattle. unload everything (except the tank), and crash into an exhausted sleep.

Next day (saturday): Set up the tank. Rinse the sand THOROUGHLY. Put livestock back into tank after the dust has settled a bit. cross my fingers it doesn't cycle again.

SO the livestock will be in containers for essentially one whole day. Is that too long? Other ideas welcome. thanks!

 

when we moved i had my fish in containers for 24 hrs at least.... i think they should be okay as long as there is a heater and some movement for them

 

You should have no problems.. just make sure the fish are out of a direct heat source when sitting in the box. When I used to run my pet store.. I'd have fish shipped in from everywhere and they would go through a much longer transport in much worse packaging and I hardly ever lost a fish..

 

UMM are you walking?

 

I might suggest some battery powered air pumps for air and water movement. Once you arrive you could then swap them out for electric ones. You can use 5 gallon containers with lids for livestock. Just cut a small hole in the lids for the airline tubing.

Good luck on the move.

 

Dunno, I just MapQuested it, 4 hours 50 minutes/283.38 miles.

 

Yeah you can really do the drive in 3 easy Mapquest is nuts!

 

From Seattle to Portland, you could probably make it in a little over 3 hours. But I routinely drive from my house, in Eugene, to Redmond, and it takes 5 hours.

I'm bummed because the installation people I wanted to hire bailed on me. So now I have to find another person, whom i won't know, to help me set it up.

 

Why do you need to hire someone to set up the tank?

 

We've had a lot of people that stirred their sand up, released gunk and started a killer cycle. How will you handle moving your sand?

 

leave the sand in the tank and get a sheet of plexiglass that is cut about a 1/2 smaller than the sides and lay it on top of the sand with some water on top of it it will hold all the sand in place

 

I'm worried moving the tank with sand in it will crack the glass.

I'm going to take all the rock and lovestock out, then siphon the sand into buckets. Then I'm going to rinse the crap out of it before I put it back in the tank.

I also considered buying new sand, if that wouldn't be sufficient to remove contaminants. what do yall think?

 

you should be fine leaving the sand in the tank if you want we moved a 120 with 6in of sand in it the tank had to weigh 400lbs or more and it was fine. just set the tank on something soft like a blanket. or you can change all the sand if you want but it could start a cycle i dont know what to tell you. you could also take all the sand out and rinse it in saltwater to clean it up a bit that put it all in buckets with some water to keep it all alive i think that is what i would do

 

If you have the time then you could rinse the sand, however if you have the extra money then new sand would be the easiest. I think either way will work.

 

good question james, would all new sand start a cycle?

 

I do not think new sand will start a cycle. I replaced the substrate in all three of my tanks without a cycle. However, if part of your rock dries out or dies I think that could cause a problem for you.

New sand would be no different than adding some new base rock like marco rock, etc. from what I understand.

 

because I'm only one person, and I can't move 6' tank alone... and also, hanging a 6' the light fixture is at least a 2 person job. And because my plumbing was just a little leaky last time, so I figured someone with more experience would know how to fix that.

I plan to keep all the rocks wet, if I can. The vast majority will certainly be wet the whole trip.

 

OK... if you need help on the set up end I can help. Also in Sept we are having the frag swap....

Let me know.

 

Cathics tank crashed overnight from a sand swap. Be careful.

A used 40 or 55 gallon tank for 2 or 3 days until things stabilize?

Maybe your sand isn't too dirty if you have a sand sifting goby + nass snails, so you could just put it in 5 gallon buckets?

 

His crashed, I think, because he was changing out the old sand using the same tank water and stuff. My set up would b an all new set up, with no "dirty-sand" contaminated water. different situations.

I've got 2 gobies, but my nass snails are lazy. parts of my sand get turned over regularly, while one part in particular pretty much doesn't move.