I am moving a long distance- Tips?

[vangogh121]

In a month I will be moving from Michigan to NC.

My wife is going in two weeks to set up our 240 display!

I have moved all my favorite corals into frag tanks and sold off anything that wont fit into these two tanks.

My wife will take the Display (240 cube) down in a week and a half and get it going.

My plans are to load all my corals into totes and buckets and load them into a Uhaul trailer and take them down two weeks later.

Any suggestions in how to keep corals separated in the totes?
Anything I should do to make this an easy and seamless process as possible?

Let me know what you did and any ideas you might have.

Thanks In advance
Rich

 

[Ehaze]

a couple deep cell batts, with power inverters?? lots of styrofoam, air pumps with airstone, and plenty of water flow??

not sure, but I would prob do something like this.

 

[Tadashi]

I have moved my 180-gal from MO to KS to TX.

Frag all mother colonies and sell to LFS for dry goods. I kept about 4" frags which took about 18 months to regrow to the original size (twice the size of a softball).

You have a leg up with the wife setting up the tank prior to you getting there.

If you have a DSB pull off the top 1" and put into a bucket with about 6" of water and powerhead and heater (I put a small cermaic plate on top to prevent the powerhead from blowing it all over). Only on while sitting, not in transit.

Rest of the sandbed went into buckets without water.

Bag all livestock. Do not leave in buckets or tanks. They will slide around and bump into things during transit. Double bag SPS or corals with sharp edges. Place in a cooler.

You can check local LFS for those transit boxes with syrafoam or just use coolers. Leave some air in the bag. Do not leave tied up longer than 48 hours. Each night I would open the bags up.

Live rock went into box with double heavy duty lawn bags. Keep a bunch of towels around. Line car with tarp just in case.

I did not run any pumps, heaters, or air stones while in transit. In hotel I would place corals in large tub with heater and powerhead. Fish got their own tub. I would have 2 5-gal buckets (depends on how much livestock you have and length of transit) my old saltwater for the trip.

It has been 4 years since I last did a move so may have forgotten something.

At the destination the sandbed and LR went into the tank immediately. Everyone else got placed in a holding tank with HOB skimmer, powerheads, heater, and lights. I just used some 2x4s to setup a quick frame to hold the lights.

Once the tank is completed its cycle (should be short) the corals went in followed by any fish a day later.

Have extra saltwater made up just in case at the destination.

 

[John_Auberry]

sell it all......buy new

 

[vangogh121]

over the last 3 weeks I went from this

to this

 

[ForSaleByAndy]

Some nice stuff there...
Where in MI are ya? Canton/Ann Arbor here.
Have anything else ya need to unload frag wise?
Let me know!

 

[darkdruid]

Seperating the corals is easy. Take tupperware containers and drill lots of holes in them, then put a coral in each one. It'll keep them from being tossed into each other and stinging, and will cut down on breakage. You can also stack corals so they take up less room.

 

[vangogh121]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15422738#post15422738 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by darkdruid
Seperating the corals is easy. Take tupperware containers and drill lots of holes in them, then put a coral in each one. It'll keep them from being tossed into each other and stinging, and will cut down on breakage. You can also stack corals so they take up less room.

Great Idea, Thats is what I was looking for!

 

[faze07hd]

I just moved from FL to NY recently... This is what i did.

I built up a good bond with a LFS and he let me bag up all of my corals the morning of the move. I bagged them all up individually with O2 in the bag. Then put all the bags into styrofoam boxes. I tipped him $20 for allowing me to do that.

I then hurried home and began the huge task of breaking everything down.

I bought 2 29 gallon garbage baskets from home depot for $15 a peice and put water in halfway in both of them. I drilled a little hole in the top of one and taped an air hose in there firmly and hooked up a shrimp bait aireator to it for the fish. I only had about 4 fish.

I then went and purchased used 5 gallon water containers from local reefers that didnt want them anymore. I ended up with about 6 of them and put the rest of the water into there.

I left about 10 gallons or so in the tank and had my friend help me pack it up and drove 28 hrs straight to NY and then set everything back up. Sounds like you will have 1 up on me with the tank already set up, so thats great!

I didnt lose 1 coral but i did lose 1 fish and the rest of the fish were very very stressed.

Good luck and PM me if you need any more advice.