Moving sps tank

P

peterlin

[Hi All -

I postpone moving my tank until later this month. I was told by a fellow reefer that I could loose my sps if tank is disturbed. He recommended that I keep my sps in a temporary rubbermaid container. Move the tank - let the water cycle before I move the corals in.

Anthony Patrick said that it's okay to move corals in the tank, but monitor the water and do water change quickly to avoid lose of corals. I'm taking a trip next week - so I won't be around to change water, or monitor water on daily basis.

I recently moved a non sps tank, and suffer great lose of fish. So I'm hoping to draw experience from others who have moved an sps tank previously. This time around I'm going to avoid disturbing deep sand bed in my refugium. The sps tank itself has about 1 inch sandbed, so it should not be too bad to get it out and rinse the sand.

Although I can probably move the tank in one day, I like the idea of keeping sps in a container - say maybe a week. This will give me time to redo my plumbing - and look into getting a chiller. But the question is - is one week going to be enough for main tank to cycle? If not - I don't know if water quality in a temp setup will last more than 1 week. There will be no skimmer for the temp setup.

Thanks in advance for your input,
Peter]
 
[After going through moving a fully stocked sps tank myself and losing 30% of my corals. I will tell right away, I would not move it again without having a fully ready tank to move the corals into. I would not try to move the equipment over from one tank to another like I did. If I did it again, I would make sure that I had another seperate tank setup with all new equipment, cycled, heated, with the calcium reactor running, with new sand, then I would pull the corals, live rock aand livestock and just move them over to the new tank. Then I would sell all of the old equipment.
When I did it, I had the new tank all set, with water running below the overflows, I used water from my old tank to cycle it for a couple of weeks, I put in new sand an dhad the water clear and as close to the old tank as possisble, I did a couple of water changes from the old tank and dumped that into the new tank. I then went back and shut the old tank off and just let it run with power heads. Then I started moving the sump, refugium, calcium reactor, plumbing and other equipment. I then went back and removed the lights and put them up on the new tank. Then I went back to the old tank after a day of getting everyting ready to move and noticed that some corals were not looking good. I moved everything to the new tank in a few hours, but immediately noticed sps starting to rtn. I thought that I had done things as well as I could have, but like I said in the end I lost about 30%.
Good luck and really think things through.]
 
[Peter, is there any way possible (and this is quite a crazy idea) that you can roll the entire unit, minus most of the water, to the new location? Will it fit through any of the openings in your home? The tank is 3' wide, right? Some door openings are 36". If you could get some very heavy duty casters, drain the tank of most of the water, roll it in place and replace the water immediately. It should be possible to do this in under one hour, with enough help. Water can go in a few trashcans on rollers.

If your door openings are close to allowing the move, but not quite, it would probably be cheaper to remove the woodwork (trim) to get a little more space, than to lose your gorgeous (expensive) corals.]
 
[I think interior doors are 32", depending on where peter wanted to go with the tank. I dont think it would fit through the kitchen door or the office door.]
 
[and you should definitely frag everything before you move it, and give the frags to members. you know, just in case? ;)]
 
[The standard is 32" and peter I think your normal kitchen entrance is probably 32" but the other way is probably more than big enough.

MY self and salsini moved my 140 gallon tank across a ceramic tile floor... however to get it perfectly straight it took my self, him, Glen, phaux, and phaux father...were taling the right side up an inch and the left back a 1/4 of an inch...objects in motion tend to stay in motion until gravity acts upon them. Gravity is impossible to fight but possible to adjust.

The other thing I'm leaving out is the tank had 80lbs of live rock in it some corals, all my fish, 1/2 full of water, and all the plumbing and sump had been removed... I lost no actual fish or coral in the move! Peter if you need a hand just call p.s. I missed you today but, will be happy to take a look tomorrow if the invite is still good!]
 
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