"Danny B." wrote in message
...
We have a 150 gallon marine reef aquarium established about three
years ago. We have a 4 to 6 inch sand bed and about 200 lb live rock.
Thriving within are numerous corals, critters and fish.

We're moving across town in a couple weeks and need advice about the
daunting task of accomplishing the move of our aquarium.

There are two of us, and we know we can handle the empty tank and
accoutrements. What's the best way to move everything else?

We've got a Ford F-150 truck. It's about a 30 minute drive between
the two locations. We're moving from a first-floor location to a
first floor location. We're in Atlanta, so we're expecting outdoor
air temps to be cooperative.

We'd greatly appreciate tips, pointers, advice, etc, from anyone who
has accomplished a similar move.




One main hint is to make the tank the last thing you take down in the old
place and be the first thing you put up in the new one. That way you have
the least down time on the tank possible.

With a tank that size, it's going to be too heavy to move with anything left
in it, so even the sand has to come out. This is where I'm willing to bet
someone is going to disagree with me, but I would rinse the sand before
putting it back. The sand becomes a nutrient sink and once it's disturbed
that much, you face a the chances of a major release and the resulting water
quality problems and a possible large algae bloom. Even if you have to use a
hose and kill off most of the benificial bacteria, to me it's better than
letting everything trapped in the sand loose in the tank.

Most of the rock will survive out of the water for a few hours if it's kept
damp, alot of companies ship rock dry for over 24 hours and it does ok. A
rubbermaid container with a lid works great for this.

If you want to save some of the old water to go back in the tank, you can,
but it's not going to wipe out your tank if you don't.

Your LFS usually has coolers left over from fish shipments and doesn't mind
giving them away. Bum or buy a few fish bags from them while you are there
and bag your fish the same way as if you were taking them home from the pet
store.

As for the corals, Most companies ship them in sealed bags with a minimum of
water, so placing them in coolers or sal****er safe plastic containers will
work. If it's less than a day, an airstone isn't even needed. But if you
want to drop one in once you get them to the new place while you set the
tank back up it certainly isn't going to hurt. If you are worried about them
stinging or touching each other, simply place them in plastic ziplock bags
and set them in the water in the cooler. You don't even have to bother
closing them, you just want to seperate them.

To speed everything up and make getting the tank back up as fast as
possible....if you have the money, large plastic garbage cans in the 35
gallon range are only $12 to $14 at Wal-Mart. Get two or three and have as
much of your water premixed as possible and ready to go. So all you need to
do is put the sand and rock in and fill the tank.