Moving my tank for decorating - Advice needed

[jimhayes21]

Hello,

I new here but need some advice.

I have a 125 litre tank that has been fully estabished for approximately 2 years now.

My tank contains 2 parrot fish, 2 Silver Dollars, 4 Golden Labs, 3 Rainbow fish, 2 little loaches, 1 clown loach, 3 red platties (i think). Every fish is perfectly happy and I never have any problems with them.

The time has come however to decorate my front room and I need to move the tank slightly forward on the shelf it is currently on, so I can wallpaper behind the tank, then move the tank back to the orginal position.

Has anyone else done similar?

At the moment I can't move the tank because of the shear volume of water in the tank. The way I can see it is I have have 2 options.

1) Do I remove most of the water from the tank, leaving enough water in the tank for the fish to remain in the tank. It should hopefully not take too long to but the wallpaper on the wall behind the tank

2) Do I remove the fish, and then all the water, move the tank, do the wallpapering and then return the water and fish?

I know the safest option is option 2 but a few of my fish are timid and easily scared when I am cleaning the tank (the Silver Dollars and Parrot Fish). I just don't want to cause my fish any unneeded stress

Any advice would be gratefully recieved.

 

[CoryGuru]

If I were you I'd go with #1 as long as there is only as much water as needed.
Fish can get stressed if they're moved in such volatile conditions as a wobbly, heavy, highly dangerous to YOU tank. Just siphon out 85-90% of the water. If you don't know what a siphon is, just search it on Petco, they're really helpful!

 

[unwritten law]

don't know what a siphon is, haha. I'd take out a bunch of the water and just remove the big fish like the silver dollars and the parrots.

 

[Lotus]

I'd go for the second option. It's just safer, and you don't risk breaking the tank.

 

[Monoxide]

I did option one more. I d drain with sphon or buckets. And took out as much as I could without harming the fish to to low of level. Then took out mostly everything cept rocks. And changed it and made sure everything was cleaned with hot water/boil. And when adding back in the water REMEMBER to put something in it to take that bad stuff out of it! I made horrible mistake.. I went to decorate.. put fish into bucket.. But the bucket was normal water no treatment.. 10 minutes later i come to get the fishy and its dead and lost 25 dollars

 

[jo3olous]

don't know what a siphon is, haha. I'd take out a bunch of the water and just remove the big fish like the silver dollars and the parrots.

WOW. I'm 99% sure you use one to take water out your tank, unless you scoop water out with a pitcher... A Fish tank siphon is a gravel vacuum. Siphons are tubes that funnel water out of one place and send it to another.

 

[CoryGuru]

he's experienced he was just joking jo3olous.

 

[jimhayes21]

Well i went with option 2 and removed all the water as not to damage the tank. The silver dollars did get themselves in a bit of a state but are fine now . Some of the fish, like my 2 bala sharks weren't bothered at all by the move.