Moving advice - What are your experiences?

H

h2oskiier

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We are in the process of buying a new home, and I'm curious what others have done when moving their tank. I have a 75 gallon tank, 30 gallon sump, probably 150 lbs of live rock covered in corals, sand bed, and 6 fish (2 clowns, 1 damsel, 1 yellow tang, 1 sailfin tang, 1 foxface). I'd like to move it all to our new house. That being said, I also want to upgrade to a bigger tank at some point (100-150 gallon), but that likely wouldn't be for 6 months to a year. I'm located in north Garland and moving about 5 miles away. Questions:

Can anyone recommend a professional mover they've used? What do they typically charge?

Any advice if I move it myself? Things to watch out for, particularly when putting the system back together? Since I'm planning to upgrade at some point, should I go without a substrate when putting the system back together at the new house? My concern is the sand bed being all stirred up after re-adding the water, and do I keep everything in buckets while the dust settles. I do have another 15 gallon tank that could probably hold the fish and any corals that might not like the cloudy water. Any advice or methods to keep the more delicate corals from shattering (birdsnest and monticaps). Just be extra careful I guess...

My last option is to just sell everything and start over in the new house. But, as a reefer on a budget, it's taken me 4 years to find deals on all the rock and corals to build this system, and would hate to have to start over completely.

Thanks for any advice or experiences you can share!
 
DNA moves tanks, not sure about the cost. The impression I've gotten is that you can lose a lot of stuff for the cost of hiring a mover. Some things to watch out for:

1) When you put the coral in buckets, watch the temp. This time of year it shouldn't be too bad, but don't let them get really cold inside, or really hot. Don't do something silly like leave the buckets on the patio in the sun for a couple hours.
2) Run carbon, skim wet.
3) Have twice as many hands (and buckets) as you think you'll need.
4) Accept that some colonies will break. That monti cap comes to mind.
5) Rinse the sand. It's amazing how much gunk comes out. The alternative is to replace the sand, so I wouldn't worry much about killing a large portion of what is in it because that is still better than dry sand. The goal is to avoid leaving a lot of organics in there that will promptly rot after all of the upheaval.
6) Base rock should either have water movement, or be kept humid but not submerged. The goal is to keep oxygen to the inside. Don't cook this in the sun either.
7) I've helped with a couple moves in this club. Generally speaking 60-70% of the people that PM and say they will show up neither show up nor have the courtesy to cancel. Have several times what you think you need, or bring your own friends in which case I would say 30% won't show.
8) Free beer and pizza go a long way.
9) Be very clear with your spouse that you won't be available for other moving tasks during this. Don't think you can coordinate moving house and moving a tank at the same time. Either put your spouse in charge of other moving stuff during the tank move, or just do them at separate times.
10) In case it isn't obvious, start early.
 
jccaclimber, all great points and thanks so much for your input! There will certainly be free beer (and plenty of it) after this move is complete.
 
Nice tank... best plan is to make a check list and a time line to follow. Put your plan on paper so everyone can see what needs to be done. If you are doing new plumbing, try to glue as much as you can before the move to reduce the curing time. I would use new sand but you can add that at any time after the move, start out bare bottom.
 
upgrade at the new house and follow jccaclimber advice
[smilie=lol.gif] [smilie=lol.gif] [smilie=rofl.gif] [smilie=rofl.gif] [smilie=lol.gif]
 
@Sherman wrote:
upgrade at the new house and follow jccaclimber advice [smilie=lol.gif] [smilie=lol.gif] [smilie=rofl.gif] [smilie=rofl.gif] [smilie=lol.gif] said:
Right on!
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Exotic Aquatics. I used them to move my 150g. No losses. It was snowing at the time. They replaced the sand bed during the move.

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Thanks steelcaveman, I'll check with Exotic Aquatics. If I can get the pros to do it at a reasonable price, that's less stress for me, the wife, and the fish. And we get to the beer a lot faster.
 
I used saltwater paradise in Irving to move a 300g tank. They were way cheaper than the 2 other fish stores I called.


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@kennyreefer wrote:
man your tank looks amazing!! I love it.. said:
Thanks kennyreefer! It's funny, I started this tank about 4 years ago, but I still consider myself a newbie. I dove right in and had no idea what I was doing. All my corals started as tiny little frags, but they're growing like weeds now. Still don't know what I'm doing, but I'm having some pretty decent success.
Click to expand...
 
Just wanted to give a brief update. I went with steelcaveman's advice and had Exotic Aquatics move the tank. Everything went as planned, no loss of life, and amazingly to me, they were able to arrange the corals very close to the same way I had them when they tore the tank down. The arrangement is actually better now as it's easier to clean (rocks further from the glass) and more places opened up for sticking new corals. They were reasonably priced, and it took them about 2 hours total to tear down, transport to my new house (about 4 miles away) and set everything back up. It would have taken me two days, two cases of beer, and too much stress on myself and the marine life if I had attempted it myself. For me, it was well worth the cost to sit back and let the experts handle it.
 
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