My last moving experience went very well. Moved a 55 gallon tank, stand, and everything inside it with no issues. Followed this basic overview:
1. gathered several water carrying items. Rubbermaid totes, newspaper, water cooler, regular 48 qt. cooler. etc.
2. began draining water into cooler and moving corals into cooler as the water level drained to them.
2. All corals safe in the cooler, began to load LR (100# or so of it) into rubbermaid totes with generous amounts of newspaper, making sure to get it nice and wet.
3. As most of the LR was out and water level got lower. Netted (1) Purple Tang, (1) Clarks Clown, (6) Chromis, (1) Urchin, and (1) cleaner shrimp into drinking water cooler.
4. the carpet anenome was never removed from the tank, nor was the sand. a few inches of water was left in the tank to keep the sand and anenome covered.
5. disconnected all plumbing, lighting, packed up chemicals, tank, stand, and loaded all into pickup truck with topper.
6. drove to destination (30 minute drive) driving slowly.
7. setup tank on stand in new location.
8. began to add water from containers and as more water was added, began adding LR, heater, and powerheads. (turned on the heater as powerheads quick as possible to regulate temp and get some flow back in the tank. This was a bit time consuming as to not crush the anenome which was dinner plate size)
9. after all excess water was added, began adding corals in relatively the same place they were previously located in relation to light. went to LFS and got 15 gallons of water. Did NOT put the water that the corals were transported in back into tank. Was advised of this as corals can release toxins in the water. Don't know if it was true, didn't want to test it. Added fish and inverts.
10. added water into tank, finished plumbing connections, started siphon on U-tube and fired up return pump. Sand storm cleared up quite quick. I did leave the lights off the remaining portion of the night. The next morning the sand storm was clear, fired up the lights and everything opened up nicely.
I never bothered to chase down any clean up crew as it was unknown how many were truely in there. Several of them did make it though, as I see them around the tank and I have yet to buy any for it. Maybe I should do that....
Total deaths: Zero!
Total move time start to finish: 3 people tearing it down, 2 people setting up at new location. About 8 hours.
This was an established tank and the temperature was 85 degrees or so outside.
