Hello fellow reefers.
Like the title says We are moving by the end of the month . That means a whole lot of moving and planing . Thats where all of your input will help me .I will be moving my set up 50 gallon dt and my 30 gallon sump. The move is to a house that we will own someday. The move is to Ohio which is about a 30 minute ride south.
My plan is to drain the tank saving the water (at least most of it 90%) putting in buckets with lids unless I can find a 55 gallon drum or a couple of 30 gallon drums . The fish making the move are 2 true perc's 1 yellow tang 1 blue chromis and 2 silver scats . Should I bag all the fish alone? I plan on putting all the live rock in a few buckets and cover with tank water. The corals will go into another tub filled with water zoos, polyps,xinia and some shrooms .My guess is that I will loose my coraline on the glass.
I would like to add some more live sand but unsure if its safe to do so without starting another cycle.
Sounds like you have a pretty good plan. If at all possible I would try to have some fresh SW mixed at the new place. I would also say it's safe to change up to 25% of the water.
I would either individually bag the fish (in as large a bag as possible) or have them all in a bucket with an air pump and an appropriately sized heater (running on an inverter).
I just moved my 29 gallon 700miles, a 24h trip that included an overnight hotel stay. All the corals and fish made it fine. I swapped out all of my substrate/aragonite and replaced it with new Caribsea Arag-Alive. If you keep your substrate make sure to wash out all the dentritus and other nasty stuff with salt water. If the substrate is not cleaned and all the junk in it gets stirred up then you may have a large cycle/crash.
I used cheap Azoo air pumps to help keep fish and coral alive. But your drive sounds like it will be short.
When we arrived at our new apt, I put all live rock, fish and corals into a 10gallon temporary setup. This gave me a day to figure out where the best spot for the 29gallon would be be after the furniture was in and the position best arrangement of the furniture decided. Having the temporary tank set up saved me a lot of stress. Having some sort of temporary set-up may help you out too.
I would save about 20 gallons of water. Fill the rest with new when you get there.
I use rubbermaid brutes or five gallon water jugs. A 55 gallon barrel of water is extremely heavy. I wouldn't attempt it,without a barrel handler and having it strapped down firmly for transport.
You could move the fish in 5 gallon pails. Covered to keep them from jumping. This would be a great time to rehome one of the scats. They get big fast! Also i'm sure you are aware, to be careful of the venomous spines.
I got all new 5 gallon pails from home depot. and kept all the water from tank but not sump and put over rocks in separate pails and mebbe one fish per pail but rock with coral went in sep pails so not to crush them ..and new sand .rip open the new bag sand and lay it flat on top of sand and use a pump to run water out of pails ...I used acaquaclear hob filter to clean up the water fast while setting up the sump
I would save about 20 gallons of water. Fill the rest with new when you get there.
I use rubbermaid brutes or five gallon water jugs. A 55 gallon barrel of water is extremely heavy. I wouldn't attempt it,without a barrel handler and having it strapped down firmly for transport.
You could move the fish in 5 gallon pails. Covered to keep them from jumping. This would be a great time to rehome one of the scats. They get big fast! Also i'm sure you are aware, to be careful of the venomous spines.
I did not know they had venomous spines they always seem to pick at my fingers when I put the seaweed in the tank for my tang.
To all thanks for the input any more sugestions (besides my spelling)????
I would definately not reuse any substrate nor bother with what is refered to as "live sand" out of a bag. Just replace with new washed substrate. If you have enough live rock I wouldn't save any more water than you need to transport everything in, water is not cycled. And as mentioned above if possible have premixed adjusted salt water at the new place ahead of time if possible, and a temporary tank would be a great idea while you get reset up.
Best of luck