Moving a 60 gallon cichlid aquarium to new apartment

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Hellzxcajun

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Jul 27, 2016
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My fiancée and I are moving to a new apartment about 2 miles away. We have a 60 gallon established aquarium with parrot cichlids and other cichlids. We are exploring best options on moving the tank. Should we pay someone $70 an hour or is it easy enough to do ourselves?

We got this tank about 2 years ago and we haven't moved in 6 years. Just wandering easiest way.

Thank you.
 

Tifftastic

"With your powers combined . . ."
Sep 9, 2008
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Tiff
Its not too bad to do it yourself tbh. You just need lots of buckets for fish with airstones while you're draining the tank. Put your filter media in a ziplock bag with some tank water so it stays moist, it doesn't have to stay completely submerged. Transfer the fish in coolers with tank water if it is hot out. The sloshing while driving will aerate enough that you don't need to worry about battery powered bubblers. Just make sure they have oxygen supplied during take down and set up, and lids are a good thing to have as well. I've moved tanks across the state when I was doing my undergrad multiple times. Here's the steps I took.

1) Fast the fish the day before the move to reduce waste production
2) Fill as many five gallon buckets with tank water as needed for the fish and any plants about 2/3 of the way full and add an air stone to each
3) Unplug everything
4) Remove filter media and place into ziplock bag with small amount of tank water, keep this out of direct light and in an environment that's not too warm or cold
5) Drain the tank to just about fin level to aid in catching the fish
6) Place fish into designated buckets
7) Drain the tank the rest of the way
8) Take the filter and heater off and put them in whatever you're going to use to move them
9) All decor into whatever container you're going to use to travel (I like rubbermaid totes)
10) Remove all substrate! (This is important for maintaining the structural integrity of your tank) A rubbermaid tote works great if you want to keep the substrate in a little bit of water to preserve your BB
11) Load everything, other than the fish into the vehicle
12) Lastly, load the fish. Since you're only going two miles just put lids on the buckets, the sloshing will allow air into the water.

When you arrive at your destination:
1) Get the fish into the new place and airstones in the buckets
2) Substrate and some water into the tank
3) Decor into the tank
4) Fill the tank
5) Set up the heater and filter, placing the old media back into the filter
6) When the temperature is close to that of the buckets of fish start adding the fish


You don't need to use old tank water or anything like that unless your fish are used to high nitrates in which case going to water with no nitrates may be too much of a shock.

Sorry for the long post! I hope this helps with your decision
 
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