Moving House & Huge fish collection

[Redtailrob]

Looking to move house in the next 2-3 months.
Have a huge selection of fish & tanks to move and very concerned about how to go about it.
A couple of my pre formed Fiberglass Ponds are over 8feet x 4feet in size and a number of the fish are well over 26" !!
Have some rare fish too that will be on the Move, B.Yarrelli, G.Platynema, Merodontus Tigrinus, B Vallianti, Jau etc.
Anyone with experience of moving a fish house & its contents / Big fish etc please churp in.
Many thanks
R

[Richard B]

I've moved a big 2 foot Oxydoras & it was an experience I can tell you. We 'swam' him into a heavy duty plastic vat that we put into the tank about 30"x18"x18" (tank was 72x36x36") and then lifted him out water & all which weighed a ton, still it meant we didn't have to net him.

The vat went onto the back of a pick up where we chucked masses of tropical hornwort over the water to provide shade & security & help prevent excessive sloshing around. Then we taped (very securely)a plastic sheet over the top of the vat to stop water loss in transit. We thought about using bin liners but they are low gauge plastic & we wanted something more substantial.

It turned out really well but compared to big Pims i think he was pretty laid back by the whole experience.

Other big fish i've moved were a3 foot plus asian swamp eel - don't know the species but looked like a small conger eel!!! That was problematic for different reasons - namely keeping your fingers & keeping him in any container at all.

I've also moved various Pims up to about 14" but nothing close to what you have. Being on good terms with my former employer LFS meant i had access to both standard & XL polyboxes, XXXL fishbags etc

I do't know if it is an option at all but could someone temporarily house them (public aquarium, LFS etc) until your tanks etc are set up in the new home? half the battle is the strip down, catch, transport, re-set up, all in an acceptable time frame.

[Viktor Jarikov]

Pretty bad timing Rob to be moving tropical fish in the dead of winter. This is how I lost 80% of my collection on moving from NY state to Florida 3 years ago in April 2011 - 2 bad trips, one good trip, each 1500 mi 40-h non-stop one-man driving. I've made big mistakes and I think I know them - one was using my media and plastic plants to biofilter water in-situ in the long, WC-less transport, which resulted in poor aeration, and the biggest stupidity was pinching an air hose between the lid and the body of the "nearly perfectly insulated" transport vessel.

Short distance should be much easier. I don't think I know of any special tricks, just common sense.

My advice is to get / rent a large (box?) truck / van where the temperature of the cargo area can be controlled. For short time / distance, one could insulate the transfer vessel quite well enough but that has a good potential to be a disaster (see above) unless built diligently and tested before actual move and executed. For ~100 lbs of fish I used ~200-300 gal of water in my 40-h transport but more is better. Ensure plenty of fool-proof aeration: both air pumps and sloshing of the water while driving should keep the water well aerated. Temp and aeration have been my stumbling blocks. Do NOT underestimate the aeration. It's crucial, like life support.

I have not fed my large fish for a month before the move and still used ammo-lock.

By setting up liner in the truck/van/trailer, you can make a liner pond on wheels if the tubs do not fit. That's what I did with my 12'x6'x3' open trailer.

Are you going to have both residences in your possession a while to set up all that's needed in the new place, even if temporary, new fish quarters?

[verbal]

If all possible having an overlap where you could set-up tanks or storage on the other end will be a big help. One thing is the fewer fish you have to deal with, the easier the move so any fish that can be sold or given away will make things easier. Obviously there are some that can not be replaced.

Also any help you can get packing fish/unpacking fish or moving tanks, will make life easier.

[Bas Pels]

I would plan a waterchange for every 2 hours of transport - and obviously, that implies transporting a few, perhaps not more than a dozen fish at 1 time.

The water in the pot is not filotered, biologically helped or what. Obviously, the advise Victor gave - not feeding the fishes for quite a while - whill help a lot.

But please do remember, the fishews are stressed, and some stressed fishes can pollute the water extra

[krazyGeoff]

I recently moved my house and fish room 50+ tanks, and fish 500? About 350 miles.
The largest fish was about 13" , so nothing like you have.

Initially I was negotiating with my LFS for temporary storage, but the reality is they did not have the space, especially since my fish room is bigger than most LFS over here.

Temporary storage of the fish also means that you have to move the fish 2 times!

I did it in 3 parts.
Part one was to move 1/2 the tanks.
Part two was to move the fish.
Part three was to move the rest of the tanks. (And the house contents).

I used professional movers for part one and three.
I used poly box's and rented a 2 ton truck to move the fish. The poly box's were 1/3 full of water, and sloshing about gave me my airation. There were 27 poly box's used and about 450 litres of water moved.
There were valuable lessons learned;
It took me 7 hours to catch all the fish, so before I had even moved the truck, the first fish caught had been in the box for 7 hours. 8 hours for the drive, and 5 hours for the unload which means the first fish caught (and therefore loaded on the truck) was 20 hours without filters etc, even though there was only 8 hours for transportation.
The fish are very hardy! All that sloshing in the box is less "angry" than a minor water surge in their native waters.
Don't bag the fish, not only does this take an extrodarinary about of time, but with no bags the sucker fish can "latch" on to the side of the poly box and "ride out" the storm (sloshing)
I did it in summer, so did not need to worry about heat loss (too much), but I could have hired a refrigerated truck and just used it for its insulation rather than refrigeration if it was winter.
Because it took 3 days to set up the tanks in the new location is was never going to work trying to move the fish and set up the tanks at the same time. It also took 2 days to break down the tanks ready for transport after the fish were removed, and another day to pack them onto the transport.

Basically it went like this;
Set up tanks from part one at new location. Put in fish to condition tanks and a whole bunch of media from existing tanks (media was transported separate to tanks, with conditioning fish, and portable air pumps) These tanks are set up for survival, rather than bio type.
Wait 2 weeks, with a mate feeding fish and adding conditioning agents etc.
Move fish and put into tanks from above.
Rest of tanks turn up, condition tanks and move fish to their correct home when appropriate.

The principle should also work for you, with some additional complications regarding catching and moving the fish, which are obviously significantly more difficult than mine were.

Oh, and I only lost 1 fish.

I have seen (on the Internet) pictures of a fish transportation truck, used by the "fish and game department" (not sure what they are called in the UK) which is sort of like a milk tanker?
You may be able to obtain one of these for your large fish?

Hope this helps

Cheers

Geoff.

[Taz]

I've moved house twice in the last few years, I've only got four tanks and my largest fish at the time was a 14" knife fish so not as tricky as your setup. I used various buckets, very large bags from my LFS and a large polystyrene box for carrying the fish.

I found our local maidenhead aquatics offered 'holiday tanks' where you could rent a sump tank for a week or two so used this service, dropped the fish off there a couple of days before moving then drained all tanks bar one, and hooked up all of the filters to that tank (to keep the water flowing as long as possible).

I drained that last tank on the day of the move and then once in the new place set that one tank up first, again with all filters, then over the next ten days ish got the other tanks set up right, then picked up the fish again.

Doing this did mean two moves for the fish, but i reckon that's less stress than trying to do it all in one go.

If you're on good terms with your LFS manager you can try to persuade them that you're doing them a favour with this process by giving them the chance to show off some rather splendid specimins and see if they would cut do you a special rate, I know that my knife fish got lots of admiring comments from what their staff said so probably helped them sell a few small ones

[coelacanth]

You can find extremely good equipment for handling large fish in angling stores, especially those that cater for carp and pike. Weigh slings, folding unhooking mats, rubber-meshed nets (fin spines don't tangle in them as easily) etc., ones that will do the job are not expensive, you could look for second hand (but obviously you'd need to carefully clean them), you could probably sell them on afterwards for little, if any loss if you buy 2nd hand.
Talk to your local retailers, koi places with indoor heated holding facilities, also try public aquaria for rent of equipment or space (although there are some legislative issues with them giving fish board). You could approach the EA also, they will have fish transport vehicles. There are a couple of companies in the UK who will do this kind of work, but they're going to be expensive. What's the distance you're moving and how much time do you have at each end of the journey?

[Redtailrob]

1st Tank Moved to " Inlaws" at the weekend ...........Only took 9 hrs!
Admittedly this was one of the smaller aquariums!
3 visits back n forth with water Butts & Cabinet, another visit with Tank & Containers with fish & a 3rd " Adhoc" Visit as Id misplaced the heads of the External Filters .....
Only 7 Tanks & 3 heated Ponds to go.......

[Richard B]

Good grief Rob

I really don't envy you with this move.....

[Martin S]

Good grief Rob

I really don't envy you with this move.....

Ditto!!

[TwoTankAmin]

It is in German, but I think watching this vid may be of some help.

[bekateen]

All of a sudden, after watching that video, I really appreciate my 3cm-long tetras.

[Viktor Jarikov]

Let's remember first step is ~ invariably the hardest and keep Rob and his close ones in our thoughts and prayers.

[Redtailrob]

ha ha ! Thanks Viktor!!