<img src="/images/welcome.gif" width="500" height="62"><br><b><i><big><big>To Reef Central</b></i></big></big>
First off, the best thing you can go armed with is knowledge. Surf around this site, buy a good book on reef care (I recommend The Reef Aquarium), and read a lot on other sites online. Just because you are starting with an established tank doesn't mean things will go without a hitch necessarily. Every time you move the substrate and live rock, you'll end up causing some die-off in bacteria that help keep the tank balanced, so you'll partially restart the cycle. Also, animals like anemones sometimes are good once established, but have problems with sudden changes in water conditions.
That being said, you can do it if you think things through. You have years of FW experience, which will help you to a point. Bring some large buckets--the kind used for selling salt, or 5-10 gallon Home Depot buckets; or large tupperware types. I would transport rock separately from livestock... and should you choose to keep sand, get another bucket for that. Do you have plans for RO/DI yet?
If you have LR that doesn't have any corals or anemones on it, you can transport this in wet newspaper, or in water... but if you do the latter, be aware that it will be HEAVY. Same goes true for the sand, should you plan to keep that (some do not, because when you stir the layers and disrupt the order of them, you stir up a lot of things that can release nutrients into the water... I personally have gone through this several times in the past few years and know it can be done, no doubt it is a PITA). Because you are 30 miles away, you can probably get by without a heater or a portable aerator; but you still have to do this process in a timely way, since the moving into buckets alone will take more than an hour in most cases. For pieces of rock with anemones and corals on them, I recommend you label them, because once they shrink down, it will be difficult to remember where they are, and you can crush them accidentally when rearranging. Note that anemones are not as sessile as corals and will move quite a bit when there are new conditions.
Lastly, acclimate verything slowly. SW animals are often more sensitive than FW ones. You will probably have to have some new SW already made up with RO/DI, because this is a slow process, and you won't be able to transport 50 gal at once. Get it in circulation and at the right temperature ASAP... the former being very important for establishing the tank again. It will likely take quite a while before the tank recovers, and it will be cloudy for some days initially. Monitor the water conditions during that time closely.
In fact, on second thought... if you have someone else in the marine hobby (or a friendly LFS with a clean tank), you may want to ask them to hold on to the animals during the move instead, this is the least stressful method.
Good luck!
