how to do it safely?

[kimoy]

okay i am going to move the tank from one room of the house to the room beside it. the tank has been running for a year now with a shallow sand bed about 1-2 inches. what is the best way to do this? on the process i will be installing a new sump with plenum and add a calcium reactor.
any suggestions is greatly appreciated.

 

[little_squid]

ill take all your coral make your move easy j/k

 

[hebygb]

Get large clean, safe containers with a dolly under each. Use those to move rock and water and livestock. Dont over disturb the sand bed, or, be prepared to replace it. The rest is just a matter of pumping and rolling. Heres a free bump. Frequent water changes in the following weeks, watching params.

 

[BlakDuc]

I talked in depth with Rod at Fragapalooza about moving the sand bed. I came to the conclusion after our chat that rinsing it in some fresh RODI would be the best option. I am in a different situation moving to a different tank, but there is no reason really to just throw the sand away. Rinse it good, it will look almost new and put it back in. After a year, it probably could use a good cleaning anyways.

 

[kimoy]

do you guys think that if i just change all the sand that it will go into a cycle?

 

[SlowCobra]

Essentially you are taking out the "good" bacteria that has formed in the mostly undisturbed sand bed. It will more than likely have a small cycle. The live rock that is in there and established should help greatly reduce that cycle.

 

[sarahkucera]

My husband and I moved a 120 with a crew of four.

I advise that you mix up more replacement water than you think you will need.

We got several pallets and used a pallet jack to move things around, but we had a bit further to go. We had five 20 gallon rubbermaids. We placed LR in them, then placed the fish into the container that had the large baserocks. We wanted the fish to have somewhere to hide so they would feel safe and less stressed. In retrospect, if I had realized that it would take as long as it did I would have provided a heater to the bucket with the fishes. The fish were all already in pretty poor shape to start with and I'm surprised that all of them survived the transfer.

The tank and stand were a royal PITA because whatever idiot set it up years ago made it so that the overflows were permanently attached to the pipes run underneath the base, so we had to keep it all one piece and muscle it up onto a pallet.

Once on the pallet, we kept it on the pallet, custom cutting a nice pallet to fit the base perfectly we are now able to pick it up and move it around the house with zero hassles, although we did move it during a water change so it only had 95 gallons plus the sump water. The raw pallet will be hidden by matching baseboard eventually. Next time we need to move the tank we will just pop off the front of the baseboard, insert the pallet jack, and voila! tank moving made easy.

The addition of the pallet also puts the tank 6" higher, so it sits at a slightly more pleasing to the eye level.

 

[NewSchool04]

I moved my old 75 about the same distance. I used those slider furniture movers and it worked great. I had containers for my LR, fish, corals and water. Drained the tank and sump and left a tiny bit of water covering the DSB. Was able to lift each corner to put the glider/sliders under each corner and then just carefully pushed the tank to it's new room.
Once I got the tank to it's new spot, I just added the LR that was didn't have corals on it and started re-filling. Added fish & corals about an hour later. No huge sand storm either and I had southdown in the tank.

Don't forget to take the sliders out! I used the same ones when I set up my 180 and had all the new sand in the tank when I realized the sliders were still under each corner. Lifting the tank, stand and 350 lbs of sand was nearly impossible for 2 guy's!

 

[skunkmere]

valla con dios.

 

[DarkLordCoral]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10679813#post10679813 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by skunkmere
valla con dios.

Vaya con dios

 

[JPagliai]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10677847#post10677847 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by kimoy
do you guys think that if i just change all the sand that it will go into a cycle?

If you have enough live rock in your tank and you use most of the current water, you won't see much of a cycle. You will see diatoms on the sand bed for a while, though.

 

[Edward Smith]

How about......

Create a temporarily setup for all the livestock. Then, move the tank AT YOUR LEISURE. I takes a day, great. It takes a month, who cares? Now you can take your time and work on whatever you want: Closed loop, aquascaping, getting the pumps just right, setup a surge/wave maker, do an upgrade, whatever. But know your not under any time restraints to finish before the end of the day?

I'd love to put all my rock in the sump and cover the back of the tank with "Great Stuff" and make some cool landscape. I'd probably get 30% more room in the tank and it would look fantastic.

 

[kimoy]

did the move yesterday and everything went well so far no casualties but i'm worried about my radiant wrasse which hasn't surfaced yet. i left it in the tank with the yellow coris because they went under the sand and i don't want to stir the sand. the yellow is out and about but still waiting for the radiant to show up.