Advice on moving larger/skittish fish

I've had good luck using coolers to move fish. Lots of surface area. The lid is nice if you have jumpers (bala shark = you do). They are insulated, which will help keep the water at the right temp a little longer. And you have nice handles. :) I would just fill the cooler up a few inches deep with tank water and put the fish in. You can keep the lid closed most of the time, to keep jumpers in and to keep the water warm. The dark will calm the fish too, which is good.

Once you get to your new home, check on the fish (which will give them some fresh air), then close the cooler up until the tank is set up. Hopefully it will all go smoothly for you. I've had to move tanks before. It is a little work, but so far my moves have gone pretty well. Hope yours does too!
Lisa
 
Wren said:
I've had good luck using coolers to move fish. Lots of surface area. The lid is nice if you have jumpers (bala shark = you do). They are insulated, which will help keep the water at the right temp a little longer. And you have nice handles. :) I would just fill the cooler up a few inches deep with tank water and put the fish in. You can keep the lid closed most of the time, to keep jumpers in and to keep the water warm. The dark will calm the fish too, which is good.

Once you get to your new home, check on the fish (which will give them some fresh air), then close the cooler up until the tank is set up. Hopefully it will all go smoothly for you. I've had to move tanks before. It is a little work, but so far my moves have gone pretty well. Hope yours does too!
Lisa
Click to expand...



THIS!!!

Ive moved tons of tanks. From small to large 300gal tanks. Fish as big as 14". Fresh water and salt water. Xtra large coolers

http://msatech.missouri.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/cooler-e1267738339220.jpg

These work absolutely perfect for big fish. In fact I like to drain most the tank water into the cooler. It helps keep the temp up and keep them safe. Enough room for them. I also take with me a Air pump and air stone and a heater. This way I can toss some of that stuff in close the lid and they will get some warmth and air while your setting tanks back up. Seriously these are way better then 5 gallon buckets. Done that to and after we started moving tanks with coolers I never went back to any other way.
 
When we upgrade tanks & have to move fish, we use a ice chest that holds about 10 - 12 gallons of water. We drain some of the water from the tank into the ice chest, catch the participants & put them into the ice chest. Then when we start setting up the new tank, we drain some of the water from the ice chest(be careful as the ice chest is weighing about 50+/- lbs. at that point) back into the new tank. This also makes it easier to catch the fish in the ice chest because as we remove water, we just tilt it a little bit and reduce the area they have to run.
 
I know this is a rather old thread, and I have read many of the comments. Thanks to all for advice, but my move is significantly further, and therefore longer between locations.

My work has asked me to move north, and open an office in that area. Unfortunately, its a 7-9 hour road trip on some rather rough roads. I have a planted and landscaped tank, and in my humble opinion, by the end of the journey if I do it myself, I an going to have a barren flat mass of sand, with plants most likely uprooted and floating aimlessly at the surface. Not to mention the fish, who are likely to be living in very cold water by the time I arrive.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to best transport everything with the least disruption possible. Or, should I just strip the tank in its entirety and start again at the other end. My main concern I guess is the welfare of the fish. I have a beautiful angel and shark, and they are extremely skittish. They are no doubt going to be expensive to replace if I lose them, due to their size. The rest are platy's who obviously have a secret supply of v1agra, so I'm not too fussed about them. In fact I could probably give them away before teh trip.

My tank is a 180 litre Juwel Vision, with external everything ( I ditched the internal stuff when it packed up)

Thanks in advance

Steve
 
When I moved the last time I had what would normally be a 4.5 hour drive, but due to snow took me almost 7. I had an 8 inch Senegal bichir, 3 four inch Botia kubotai, and a handful of scissor tails. I had a 33 gallon long and a 29 gallon tank that were both planted. I put the fish in a 5 gallon bucket with a lid, on the floor in front of the passenger seat and ran the heat the whole time. I periodically checked the temp (about every hour) to see if I needed to turn the heat up or down. Because the lid wasn't clipped all the way, the sloshing provided O2 and the fish had everything they needed. I uprooted my larger plants and pit them in fish bags from PetSmart, with a little bit of water and breathed into them to expand them (thereby providing them with a lot of CO2). The tanks I removed all the water from and left the smaller of the plants and substrate. You don't want to move tanks bigger than this with a lot of substrate as the weight of during moving can cause substantial strain on the glass leading to leaks later. You will have to replant, there isn't much in the way of being able to fix that. But in my trip, I didn't lose any fish and all of my plants recovered.
 
If the shark is not too big you might make one of those fish traps with a 2 liter soda bottle. You cut off the top to make the opening bigger. YouTube shows how to make them.
Sometimes I just chase the fish into the open 2 liter bottle with a net and then keep the net over the opening while I remove the bottle with fish inside.
 
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