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Moving a fish tank
29/01/05
Moving a fish tank
I've got a fish tank full of tropical fish.
It's about 1 metre by half a metre by half a metre. Holds 180 litres of water. Before the move I had in the tank:
* 1 Upside down catfish
* 1 Golden Chinese Algae Eater
* 1 Royal Whiptail
* 3 Clown Loaches
* 9 Neon Tetras (with 3 gone missing, eaten perhaps)
* 3 Rummy Nosed Tetras
* 4 Bristlenosed catfish
The move is a fairly big job, you have to take most of the water with you (a tank takes up to 6 weeks with fresh water before it's ready for fish). So I got up at 6:30 on Saturday morning to start draining the tank into some containers.
The plan was to catch the fish, put them into these containers then we could safely toss around the tank. I only managed to catch 2 of the loaches, 2 of the neons, the whiptail and one of the catfish.
Thankfully Nick gave me a hand moving this tank. The thing was damn heavy though, especially since the new home was up 2 flights of stairs (or exactly 30 steps). Anyhow with Lana's help we managed to move the tank. Of course forgetting to bring a few critical items with us (net and lid covers).
The damage aftermath is as follows:
2 rummy nosed tetras dead ( I can't see the last one).
Haven't confirmed the existence of 2 of the catfish.
The rummy nosed tetras are a delicate species, so they're deaths, while tragic, wasn't totally unexpected.
Going to give it a month then intend to get 3 small angels, and a siamese fighter.
Major thanks to Nick and Lana for their assistance in moving the tank. And Nick, you forgot to take your jumper with you again.
1 comment
Old post I know, but this is the first time I've been here. Anyway, did you try taking all of the ornamental stuff out of the tank before catching them? In times past, that's what I've done, and it makes it tons easier. I moved 5 tanks to my present home, and bagged up all the fish and put the bags in coolers. Ornamental stuff came out long enough to catch the fish, then went back into the tanks. I drained the water down to the level of the substrate and tossed it, as I was moving far enough that saving the water simply wasn't an option. The fish spent 8 hours in bags and all I lost was a feeder for my cichilids. I consider myself very lucky. I used biospira (or something like that) to quickly add more bacteria etc to the tanks when I set everything back up. In the end, one feeder lost, and a minor algae outbreak.Current tank list:
-55gallon mixed cichilid tank
-10gallon fresh with a single super-evil fullbornii cichilid
-10 gallon marine sick tank currently hosting 3 damsels
-46 gallon reef tank
30 gallon african cichilid tank
30 gallon planted tank
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