Questions on moving a120g system.

The sand bed once disturbed doesn't make much difference what happens after that and like Jason said, unless you have some depth of atleast 4 inches of very fine sand, you are not going to have different zones anyway. The very most important things are making sure the salinity is dead on for the animals, and atleast within .001 of each other when transferring to othe r containers and the other is keeping things warm, use plenty of blankets and towels or whatever to keep things warm. I would put as much as possible in heated vehicales and keep the inside temps as warm as you can stand. Cooling of the water on a 4 to 5 hr move this time of year well happen fast and well be the main killer of the bacteria on the live rock and substrate, just keep the rock and sand WARM and wet or damp and things should be fine. I wouldn't wait to put the rock in the tank once it has water,I would put in right away, you can arrange the next day. Depending on the amount of detritus in the bed, I wouldn't rinse unless nessasary as it well kill the bacteria and that can cause a cycle, who knows how big, and the fish won't take even a little ammon. spike without a
great deal of stress, and likely to loose some if not all animals unless you have somewhere else to keep them if a spike takes place. I would keep everything warm and get back in the tank as soon as possible.

 

You could probably move it with two or three people.

 

Moved a 180 last April, complete system from oceola to LR. we moved the stand and canapy on a flat bed and put the tank in the back of the truck wrapped in blankets for cushion and to block debris. we had 3 men and me to supervise...haha .got it home scrubbed it out added new sand and new water, put the rocks that had been in it- back in it.... added a heater, let the sand settle and added the live stock that came with the tank- a day or so later. I would think adding the old sand back could cause more problems than just adding new?
Good Luck!!

It's all part of the fun! I would do it again if my husband would let me have another tank!

 

Adding the old sand has to be done and kept fairly warm if there is to be no cycle. I have moved several tanks over the years and using the old sand is not a problem. It well settle and can be vac on the top afterwards, and the very slight amount that is vac'd out can be rinsed and put back in, say the upper qtr inch. The most important thing is keeping the tank and sand and stuff atleast above 70 deg. to keep bacteria alive unless you have somewhere else to put all the live stock and let the tank cycle. Keeping the bacteria alive is not a debateable subject, it well die if not kept warm and there well be a cycle.

 

Actually by not reusing that sand as John said you are gonna have a large cycle. And you sure don't wanna throw livestock into a tank starting to cycle. Especially not the same stuff that just came out of a mature tank. r_n_a I'm truly suprised you didn't loose a considerable amount of livestock to ammonia spikes and the like. Luck was with you.

 

In the past every tank that I have moved I have started it over with fresh substrate in it and never had any issues. I just never could bring myself to use the old sand as I saw all the junk and goo that came out of it when dismantling the tank to move. You could vacuum some of the old sand real good and use as a seedbed or add one of the bacteria starter cultures. This past October moved home a 75 with only 55 lbs of rock in it and full of livestock and had no ammonia spike or losses(even the clam did fine) As others have said the biggest issue will be keeping the rock damp or even better submerged in tank water and warm for that length of trip in these temps. If you know someone that has an inverter you could use it and run tank heaters in your tubs to keep the temps up.

 

Aside from the inverter, you may apply this somehow. In the past when a heater went out I have floated clean milk jugs full of hot water in my sump. Maybe you could do the same in your containers. I think the coral and fish will be fine. I made 3 hour trip with frags in bowls and the bowls in a styrofoam shipper and when I got home the temp had only dropped a couple degrees. Just keep the stuff in the cab.

 

Both of you were very lucky not to have any cycle show up. I don't know all the circumstances of the moves and how many or what animals you had in the tanks after the moves. I would not ever advise doing it that way. First off the substrate shouldn't be that dirty, if it was, you probably had some issues with algae, cyno or other stuff going on in the tank if there was that much detritus. The old water can be poured through a felt sock before being introduced to the tank. Have any new water mixed and heated for 24 hrs ahead of time at the new destination and the salinity matching. Use a flour sifter and pour the sand in it and pour some tank water over it and that well rinse plenty good enough and then pour the tank water through the sock.
Using an inverter with a bunch of heaters is probably a little hard to do for most. Just keep the stuff in a heated van or suv, including the tank, keep the car heater blowing and if the car is kept at 70 or better, which should not be hard to do, things well be fine. You might lose a little weight in the move from sweating on the drive which ain't bad.

 

I would save as much of the tank water as I could to put back in the tank after move and as mentioned before have some in tub for fish once you get where your going with powerhead and heater. Just acclimate fish for temp since the water will be the same. I would also try to place live rock in large tubs or trash cans and once loaded in trailer fill up with tank water. If you run out of time you only need to place powerhead in tubs overnite and possible a heater .
Good Luck!
Eddie

 

I would not use the trailer at all. You need to use a van or suv and load everything in. A 120 is only 4 ft long and the stuff inside it, so a few buckets of stuff. Using the original water isn't as important as using the original sand and rock and keeping it alive. The water doesn't have much bacteria at all, they are on the substrate and the rock. Using the old water is just so you don't have to mix 120 gals [ well say 100 gals is probably more close to actual volume inside the tank].

Been thinking about the substrate debate and guess I always and my friends always had quite a bio load of fish and animals in our tanks. If you have just a few small fish in say a 120 and can keep the rock alive you probably could use new substrate and not have a spike, but if you have a decent amount of mainly fish for the tank using the old substrate well be needed to keep from having a cycle of any kind. So you well have to determine that. I would use the old to be safe, if it were me as it can be cleaned good enough to use, using tank water . You might also consider going SSB and only using a 1/2" to 1" in the bottom, because unless you are using very fine sand and atleast 4 to 6 " deep, you really aren't doing a true DSB and it well just be a harbor for detritus, as stated earlier when tearing down, the polluted condition of the substrate. I have dug down in a true DSB and the sand is usally very clean as it is processing the detritus until the tank gets along about 10 to 15 yrs old.

 

to RRMAS reef forum

+1 to the good advise above...

 

Thanks for all the great advice, guys and gals! I'm going to do my best to follow as much of it as I can.
I'll have around 100 gallons of saltwater heated up and ready to go at the destination. I think I'm around 70 gallons right now, should have plenty by tomorrow night. I'll make a descision on how much of the sand bed to use once I get a good look at it when we take it down...If it's clean I'll use it all. Joe said it averaged around 4" in depth. I don't think the fish load is too heavy : hippo tang, pair of black ocellaris clowns, BTA, blue chromis, skunk cleaner shrimp, scooter blenny...assuming that's all there is....those plus a few corals. I'll squeeze the livestock into the cab with the rock and as much sand as possible. The heater will be cranked up to uncomfortable levels. I'll have to be careful to keep it under the speed limit...I may have a hard time explaining to the cops why I'm shirtless and in my underware in the middle of February with a truck full of rock and sand!

 

Wonder if this would help?

http://www.amazon.com/CyberPower-CP..._1_11?ie=UTF8&s=garden&qid=1266438706&sr=1-11

 

I thought about those. I actually have a little 75 watt inverter, but 75 watts isn't really big enough to do much...MAYBE run a heater for a 10 gallon tank, which might be all you need if you could move it around during the trip. That 150Watt one you linked to might be usefull, you might be able to run a couple of small heaters with it or one a little larger. Earlier, someone else mentioned the larger power inverters...if I had one I would certainly use it, but, at this point, most everything will be in some form of insulated container, so that should help. After all, that's how they ship the stuff to begin with, and they aren't shipped inside a heated cab, either...of course, not all of their shipments are successfull, either.

 

reeformadness no tshirt and underware, now I don't care who you are that's funny Remember when they ship this time of year they use heat packs in the ins. boxs, the car heater well do the samething. Good Luck! The only fish I would worry about is the hippo tang, they get ich just looking at them wrong.

 

Looking foward to an update on how this went?

 

+1

 

How bout some pics reefer?

 

Here's the update...Man, was that a lot of work!!! We got started breaking the tank down a little before 9am on Saturday. We had everything loaded by about 1pm and were heading back to NWA. Had one little misshap while loading the hood. One of the HQI fixture lens covers slid out and shattered into a zillion pieces. I've already ordered a replacement fixture, which was only $9 more than trying to get a glass shop to make me the right size piece of tempered glass...go figure. We didn't get the tank in place at my house until close to 8:00pm. I knew there was no way I was going to get it up and running before I crashed so I put all the inverts, fish and some of the rock into a 50 gallon rubbermade tub that I had already up to temp and mixed properly the week before. I had in a powerhead and a couple airstones going in it. They seemed fine in there the whole time. I spent the rest of the evening and most of the next day cleaning the pumps, powerheads, etc. and removing some of the excess algae from stuff. I was doing all this by myself so I was up until 1am Sunday morning. By 1am Monday morning I had the sand, rock and water in the tank (within about 8inches of the overflows). That when I realized I needed the water in the tank the fish were in to finish filling the tank and sump. Aaaaarrrrg! I think I was just too tired to think straight when I put them in that huge tub. I ended up transfering the livestock into a smaller 35 gallon bin to free up more water. I finally got the powerheads and a heater going in the tank and let it clear up until Monday evening. By 9pm Monday evening everyone was in their new home and looking fairly happy. I'm finishing up here at work, I'll try to post a pic or two tonight.

 

Thanks for the post !!! Sounds like a lot of work, but I am sure you will enjoy your new tank !

Looking forward to pics when you get some time & caught up on the sleep !

All the best