moving fish

I recently set up a 75 gal tank with 16 tetras, 8 gouramis, 3 corys,
and 3 ADFs. We are now in the process of selling our home and we will
be moving. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to move so many
fish and such a big tank. The biggest worry I have is we will be
moving during cold weather and I am terrified that the fish will get
cold. I know I've read that the gouramis are sensitive to cold. If I
move them in bags from my LFS how long will they last like that? It
will take time for the new water to warm up. I'm hoping that since I'm
keeping my gravel and decorations that the tank will be cycled... am I
assuming too much? should I add Bio-Spira just in case? Anyone who has
moved a big tank and has any advice I would love to hear from you.
(Let me know about the mistakes too so I can learn, please.)

Thank you for your help.

I would get rid of the fish and start over.

All of your fish are "sensitive to cold."

"Roxanne" wrote in message
om...
I recently set up a 75 gal tank with 16 tetras, 8 gouramis, 3 corys,
and 3 ADFs. We are now in the process of selling our home and we will
be moving. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to move so many
fish and such a big tank. The biggest worry I have is we will be
moving during cold weather and I am terrified that the fish will get
cold. I know I've read that the gouramis are sensitive to cold. If I
move them in bags from my LFS how long will they last like that? It
will take time for the new water to warm up. I'm hoping that since I'm
keeping my gravel and decorations that the tank will be cycled... am I
assuming too much? should I add Bio-Spira just in case? Anyone who has
moved a big tank and has any advice I would love to hear from you.
(Let me know about the mistakes too so I can learn, please.)

Thank you for your help.

I posted the below here a while ago. I have since moved again from that
house to a new house using the same method except that I didn't use the
baggies, but just your basic ziploc hard sided food storage containers.
Worked fine. All fish survived - including the 5 gouramis. If you can't
find a styrofoam container maybe you could use a regular Coleman-type
cooler. Before you put the fish in containers/bags and into the cooler, put
fairly warm water in the cooler to warm the sides (then pour that water out
and put your fish and any aquarium water you can save in containers into
cooler)? So hope this helps at least give you some ideas to use in your own
situation - I realize you have a much bigger tank than my two combined.
Good luck!

"I recently moved from an apartment to a house successfully. No fishy
deaths. I have a lot of the same fish you mentioned in two tanks - a 20
gallon and a 10 gallon. My move was a 30 minute drive. So the situation
sounds pretty similar except that I don't have quite the volume that you do.

Supplies used:

1 styrofoam cooler (got it from an Omaha Steak gift sent to me)
5 of those ziploc storage containers w/lids that are rectangular and about
12"x6"x5"
30 or so QUALITY ziploc gallon size bags

What I did:

I tried to salvage as much of the aquarium water I could so I filled the
rectangular storage containers most of the way full with aquarium water and
put about 6 or 7 fish in each container and put the lids on. Then I double
bagged the ziploc bags and filled each about 2/3 full with aquarium water
(they were getting too heavy to fill all the way) - did this until I ran out
of bags. I put a couple of the bags of just water on the bottom of the
cooler. Then put the fish in their containers in on top of the bags. And a
couple more bags of water only on top. At the time I only had the one
cooler. Had I had another one I'd have put the rest of the bags of water in
another cooler. The remaining water in the aquariums I poured out until
they were light enough to lift and wouldn't slosh out in the car. We left
right away and got to our new house where we took everything inside. I
cleaned out the tanks really well, got them all set up and then starting
emptying the baggies of water into them. When all the aquarium water was
gone, if there wasn't enough for the fish yet, I filled more with tap water.
Then put the fish and the water they were in from the containers into the
aquariums and some stress coat and shazam - all done.

Having said that, I would *not* recommend the ziploc baggies. The
containers worked really well, but the baggies were leaky - even double
bagged. In retrospect, I don't know WHY I got the baggies!! A plastic
container would have worked better I'm sure... something with a lid to keep
everything dry ."

I disagree. Fish are regularly shipped via air in cargo planes
and they survive.

Somewhere out there is a really good "So your moving your
fish" article. I don't have the link but it was full of great advice
for before, during and after the move. Until someone can
point you to it, I'll tell you what used to work for me when
I was receiving fish regularly.

Put your bagged fish in a foam shipping box and add
"heat packs" (your LFS should be able get you the former,
I don't know where to get the latter).

To avoid poisoning the water in transit, don't feed for 24
hours before shipping and put a little amquel or ammo-lock
in the bag right before closing it up. Oh--see if you can get
someone to top the bag off with pure oxygen.

This is how we used to get goldfish shipped overnight(maybe
100 1" fish in 5-10 gallons) and 95% would survive the trip.

-coelacanth

"Albert Turner" wrote in message
link.net...
I would get rid of the fish and start over.

All of your fish are "sensitive to cold."

"Roxanne" wrote in message
om...
I recently set up a 75 gal tank with 16 tetras, 8 gouramis, 3 corys,
and 3 ADFs. We are now in the process of selling our home and we will
be moving. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to move so many
fish and such a big tank. The biggest worry I have is we will be
moving during cold weather and I am terrified that the fish will get
cold. I know I've read that the gouramis are sensitive to cold. If I
move them in bags from my LFS how long will they last like that? It
will take time for the new water to warm up. I'm hoping that since I'm
keeping my gravel and decorations that the tank will be cycled... am I
assuming too much? should I add Bio-Spira just in case? Anyone who has
moved a big tank and has any advice I would love to hear from you.
(Let me know about the mistakes too so I can learn, please.)

Thank you for your help.

You don't mention how long the fish will be in transit or what the
weather conditions will be. If under a day transit and in a SUV I
would think you could put 10 gallon garbage bags as a liner in a
plastic bucket or maybe two buckets. The SUV heat would keep the fish
fine I would guess.

Time in transit and local weather are vital to the questions's answer.


On 20 Jan 2004 23:02:28 -0800, (Roxanne) wrote:

I recently set up a 75 gal tank with 16 tetras, 8 gouramis, 3 corys,
and 3 ADFs. We are now in the process of selling our home and we will
be moving. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to move so many
fish and such a big tank. The biggest worry I have is we will be
moving during cold weather and I am terrified that the fish will get
cold. I know I've read that the gouramis are sensitive to cold. If I
move them in bags from my LFS how long will they last like that? It
will take time for the new water to warm up. I'm hoping that since I'm
keeping my gravel and decorations that the tank will be cycled... am I
assuming too much? should I add Bio-Spira just in case? Anyone who has
moved a big tank and has any advice I would love to hear from you.
(Let me know about the mistakes too so I can learn, please.)

Thank you for your help.