Moving house - Yikes what to do with fish & tank?

[Furball]

I'm moving house - What to do with fish & tank? I have a 64L tank with a floor standing filter with 8 danios 4 neons and 4 scissor tails. and a few teeny snails.

any top tips please to make their journey as stress free as possible

[EauRouge]

How far are you going? Have you got a spot at your new house for the fish tank sorted already or will you wait a bit? Do you know if the new house will have wildly different tap water (much harder or softer)?

64 litre tanks are fairly simple to move but you'll need some extra bits and bobs. Leave it until last so that the fish aren't out for too long.

Firstly you'll need a big container to save as much of the water as possible. Those collapsible ones for camping will be fine and probably the cheapest way of doing it. If you can save at least 25% of the water, that would be good- take as much as is practical.

You'll need fish bags and a polystyrene box with a lid for the fish. Ebay is cheap for buying fish bags in bulk but most fish shops sell them individually. I'd probably put each species in a separate bag if you can get one big enough for the danios, or you could split the danios between two bags. Some people use Stresscoat when transporting fish.

A bucket with a lid and a battery powered air pump will keep the filter ticking over. The media needs to stay wet and with a flow of water over it. If you're only moving about an hour away then you can get away with just slinging it in a fish bag with some water but if it's a long journey then I'd use the air pump so you don't lose too much bacteria. Just shove the air stone from the pump at the bottom of the filter canister so that the bubbles go through the media. Hope that makes sense!

Then when you get there, set it all up and get it running as soon as you can. Don't forget to acclimatise the fish. Keep an eye on the water for the first couple of weeks in case you get an ammonia spike. Hope that's helpful :)

[Furball]

Thank you EauRouge - I was hoping you'd pop along

It's about 15 miles away and a different county so I don't know about the water.

The trouble is - you know how it is with house purchases, sometimes the banks hold up the whole thing so it's not straight in.

We don't know where they are going in the new house yet, they currently sit on the sideboard in the dinning room and we are not sure if they will stay there. - that would be easiest otherwise we'll have to buy a stand.

I was going to get fish bags and - can I put them in a hardsided cool box with a lid instead of polysterene? as I already have one of those.

The water container = excellent idea and won't be a problem.

Am I right in thinking you don't feed them for a few days beforehand?

[EauRouge]

Yes, the cool box should be fine. Temperature isn't too much of a concern this time of year anyway (unless you live in Lapland) so anything that will stop them getting bashed around is good.

If it's only 15 miles then the water will probably be the same- if you look on the water company website then it should tell you which reservoir it comes from. But you could test it to be sure.

64 litres is small enough that you can move it around inside the house if you need to. Obviously best avoided if possible but don't worry too much if you need to move it later on. Moving house is stressful enough!

I'd feed them the morning before the move, not on the day or on the day after though.

Good luck, hope all goes well.

[Furball]

Thank you EauRouge - that's a huge help and settles things in my mind. I just know that their stress levels are delicate and I'd hate to unknowingly cause any problems for them.

Now lets talk about Spa.....

[EauRouge]

Still the best circuit on the calendar I will personally hunt down Bernie if he ever takes it off.

[Furball]

Did you see him on panorama on Monday? - I didn't as I went out, but I'm sure dh would of watched it.

I will confess I am an F1 fan by default ie dh and ds are huge fans and so I'm roped into it too. Great stuff, but my knowledge is extremely limited, it takes me most of the season to remember who's moved to which team

We went to the 6 hours of Silverstone on Easter Sunday saw Mark Webber, Wurz, Nakijima, Buemi, etc etc etc driving in the race - a great day out.