moving fish

mishababy

Small Fish
Apr 25, 2005
42
0
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47
arkansas
#1
Ok i am possibly moving in a month or so to another town 2 hours away, how do i safely move my fish i have a 10 gal with platys and catfish and tetras, and approximately 8 baby platys (3 weeks old today) and i also have a 5 gallon (which i will be upgrading soon) that has a rainbow shark and 2 gouramis
any suggestions.... thanks in advance
:eek:
 

FroggyFox

Forum Manager
Moderator
May 16, 2003
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Colorado
#2
Why dont you do a search on here about moving? We've had this question come up quite a bit.

I just moved all my tanks a few weeks ago and you can be thankful you only have a 10G :) This is how I move mine...anyone else can totally speak up and give you any of their hints, there are many different ways you can do it.

Before you even get around to the actual moving, you need to be sure you are aware of the water conditions at the new place. How does the pH compare to the pH where you are now?? Are you going to be able to use tap water? Are there nitrates in the tap water? etc etc. Hopefully they're pretty close to the same, if they're NOT then you'll probably need to bottle up enough of your current water to set your tank up at the new place...then you can spend a week or two acclimating your fish to the new pH using tiny water changes. If they're close enough to the same then you dont need to worry about saving any of your water. I would put your filter media in a baggy with some tank water (and some air!) to keep it from drying out during the trip.

A couple hour drive is pretty long, I've never moved that far, so I think if I were you I'd put the fish into a cooler (not to keep them cold...but so that their water keeps its temperature. IF you have a good cooler...you can just rinse it out really well with hot dechlorinated water and then put the water and fish straight into it...or if its a big cooler you could put the fish in a bucket and put the bucket into the cooler. OR you can put the fish in bags like you'd get them in from the pet store and put those bags in the cooler.

I like to put all of the plants and the fish into a bucket. Making sure that the level of water is well under 1/2 of the bucket because no matter how still you think you can keep the bucket...there will be tons of splashing.

Then empty out as much of the water from your tank as possible (because water is really heavy and it will put undue stress on your tank frame.) put everything in the car and away you go. The most important things are keeping the fish with as little amount of stress as possible which means not many temperature changes, not kept in the same water for any longer than they have to be, not plopping them into water that is incredibly different than they're acclimated to etc. and then of course making sure you dont have to recycle your tank...so keeping gravel/filter/filter media/decorations wet with tank water would be a good thing.
 

ashleigh

Superstar Fish
Jan 8, 2004
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Missouri
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#3
Totally agree. The only other thing I can think of is if you put them in a cooler, for a trip that long you may want to get a battery operated airstone, but that is up t o your discretion. They get to the LFS from the distributor's without one but then again they are prepared for losses. Also if you have live plants be sure to put them in the bag with out water.
 

ashleigh

Superstar Fish
Jan 8, 2004
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Missouri
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#7
I've never seen them either- or the air pumps- but I have heard of people using them with good results. Personally I would want to do more research on the tabs, but there should be info here if you do a search.