How to move 10 Gallon Fish Tank
How to Move a Fish Tank and Minimize Fish Stress!
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hello everyone this is jason from
primetime aquatics and in this video we
are going to look at how to move a fish
tank to a new location
we're going to look at three different
scenarios the first one is that maybe
we're just moving the fish or the tank
to a new location within the house
the second one is you're moving homes
you're going from one location to
another but you're typically going to do
that over the course of one day
and the third option is we're moving
houses maybe out of state or across
country and now we've got
multiple days that we're going to have
our fish out of our tank
the nice thing is in the first option we
can carry over a lot of what we're
learning to the other two
i hope you enjoy the video and i
appreciate you being here
now from the outset if you've got a tank
that's 10 gallons or less and you're
moving it to
a different location within the house
sometimes it's just easiest to move
remove the decorations bring the tank
water down to about 75 percent of its
original
and just move the tank and refill and
put the decorations back in
our focus here is going to be what do we
do with tanks that are really over 10
gallons at least when we're moving them
within the house
so first thing we have done this a lot
in our fish room we've moved a lot of
fish in a lot of tanks
the first thing we like to do if i know
i'm going to be moving a tank or
fish to a different tank is i am going
to set up
water for those fish the day before so
maybe that means i'm going to have a 30
gallon bin
that's going to put i'm going to put
fresh water in that or maybe a 5 gallon
bucket depending on the size of the fish
but i put that water in that bin
or the bucket the day before i
dechlorinate the water
and i run an air stone in that water so
the water is not sitting there stagnant
over the course of 24 hours before we
add the fish so i've got my water set
aside that's where the fish are going to
go when i have to move things around
when i'm actually ready to move the tank
to a different location within the house
first thing i'm going to do is i'm going
to shut off all the electricity so the
filters the heaters that's all getting
shut off
the exception would be the lights i'm
going to leave those on the next thing
i'm going to do is i'm going to remove
everything out of that tank all the
decorations faker reel plants
rocks driftwood anything where fish can
hide in or behind that needs to come out
of the tank trust me it's going to make
your life so much easier
when you're trying to catch the fish now
if it's real plants i'm going to put
those
in a separate bucket with treated water
just to make sure that they stay
they stay wet now once you've moved all
that stuff in the tank you will have
probably stirred up some things that
were in the substrate detritus fish
waste
the nice thing is we're going to want to
bring that water level down to about
25 percent of its original volume so
what we'll do is we'll go ahead and
gravel vac
if it's if it's gravel we'll go ahead
and gravel back and if it's sand we'll
kind of move the gravel back on the
surface of the sand and try to suck out
as much of that fish waste as we
possibly can at the same time we're
going to bring the water level down to
about 25
of the original amount this is going to
make catching the fish a whole lot
easier
the other trick that we often use is i
will often use
two nuts instead of one and so i will
use one nut to guide the fish into the
second net we'll take all the fish out
of the tank and then we will put them
either in that bin that i talked about
earlier or the bucket
that water has been fully treated it's
ready to go
after that we'll then remove the rest of
the water and if we have to if the tank
is large
and heavy we'll remove the substrate and
i like to try to keep that wet as well
because there's beneficial bacteria in
that substrate and i'd like to try to
keep as much of that as possible
the same thing goes for the filter media
i would prefer to keep
that wet so that as much of the
beneficial bacteria that was originally
in there
is left when we set up the new tank
all right now that we've got everything
broken down we can move the new tank to
a different location within our home
we'll add our i try to use the original
substrate if you don't like the original
substrate you're changing it over that's
fine
and we put everything back in that we're
going to use from the old setup or we
put the new stuff back
in i want to get that filter up and
running right away
to get the water circulating in there
again to try to keep the beneficial
bacteria
at least as healthy as we possibly can
and then the fish
treat the water with dechlorinator the
fish go back in one of the things that
you should consider
especially if you're redoing the tank
and you're re
redoing all the decorations and the
substrate
definitely use your used filter media
but also
it would be a very good idea to use
something like a fritz syme seven or a
fritz
turbo start to re-add the beneficial
bacteria so that you don't get an
ammonia spike later on
so that's pretty much how we move tanks
from one location to another inside of a
home
now what if you've got to actually move
to a different location
everything i've just said is basically
the same with the exception of i'm
definitely not going to be using a bin
of water
because i can't carry the bin if it's a
30 gallon bin you're not going to carry
300 pounds of water around
usually what we're going to do is we're
going to rely on buckets exclusively now
same things apply in terms of getting
your old tank ready
you're removing all the decorations
you're turning off all the electricity
you want to keep your filter media wet
throughout the move
the difference here is the planning
i would suggest when you move that tank
to a new home
either make it the very first thing you
do or the very last you want to minimize
the amount of time
your filtration media and your fish
are outside of that tank that being said
if you're going to be spending multiple
hours
in transit from one location to another
before you can get the tank set up
this is where i might invest in a
battery powered air pump and so that way
your air stone is still going inside the
bucket
this may also be a good time to consider
having a sponge filter instead of an air
stone
and that sponge filter should be in the
tank about three to four weeks before
you plan to do the move
that way it's got beneficial bacteria
within the sponge and that way you're
not super stressed about the fish
at this point now it's more about
keeping the beneficial bacteria on your
filter media healthy
so when it comes to moving from one
location to another as long as you're
getting that done on the same day
everything we said earlier would still
apply except now we just want to make
sure that we can minimize the amount of
time the fish are outside of their new
home
the other thing you're going to want to
do is reduce the amount of food you feed
your fish
24 hours before you plan to do the move
that's going to help reduce the amount
of
fish waste that's produced throughout
the time of the move
now the most complicated situation is
when you're going to be moving fish and
the move is going to take multiple days
here the issue the main issue is going
to be how do we regulate water
parameters and how do we regulate the
temperature
the temperature is not something we
typically worry about as much
if it's going to be short-term but when
we're talking about multiple days
it becomes a bigger deal especially
depending on the type of fish that you
keep
now in this particular scenario you've
got a couple options you can either put
your fish in bags or buckets
i prefer in this particular scenario to
use buckets as opposed to bags for a
couple reasons now
the advantage of the bags is that you
can put them in a cooler
maybe you put some heat packs in the
cooler you seal that up and you can
regulate the temperature a little bit
easier
the downside to the bags is you're gonna
have to be re-bagging those fish on a
daily basis
and adding fresh dechlorinated water to
those bags so that you don't have an
ammonia spike
the advantage to the bucket especially
if you only need one is you can still
use the battery powered air pump
for the buckets i always recommend in
any of these scenarios a lid and just
drill a hole in the top of the bucket
lid so you can run an air hose through
there
use a sponge filter that's already been
fully cycled
the only issue that you're going to have
to deal with at that point is
temperature regulation now here's where
it gets a little bit uncomfortable if it
were me
i might try to ensure that the room
where the bucket is going to be or the
car is about 80 degrees that's pretty
warm especially for dealing with a car
now if you're moving in the summer
that's not a big deal but if it's going
to be colder outside i would prefer
that the room whether it's a if i have
to stop at a hotel
or if it's going to be a car that that
car is very warm that will keep the
water in the bucket relatively warm so
if the air temperature is around 80
degrees
maybe that means your bucket water is
going to be around 76 or so and that's
usually sufficient for most types of
fish the other thing you're going to
want to consider whether
you're using bags or buckets is you're
going to want to have water conditioner
on hand and that way you can ensure
that the water that's going into the
bucket or into the bags has been fully
conditioned and dechlorinated
now even with the buckets i would still
highly recommend bringing multiple
buckets
one is going to have just water with an
air stone that's dechlorinated
you can use that water the next day you
can just keep transferring the fish back
and forth
in between the buckets and every day
there's going to be a bucket with the
fish
there will be another bucket that's got
fresh water for the following day
all right everyone if you're looking for
more information on how to cycle a tank
quickly i will put that card in the
upper right hand corner
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this video useful
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