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Hi all!
To night I´m going to pickup a 540 Liter (143 gallon). I´m going to place it at the same spot as my 222 liter (59 gallon) is occupying right now and I´m going to transfer all the fish, sand, roots, pumps etc. to the new tank.
My current plan is to
1. Catch the fish and put them in a bucket.
2. Transfer all water to the big tank temporarly.
3. Empty all the sand and driftwood to a big plastic container.
4. Move the small tank to another room and put the water and fish back into it.
5. Place the new tank and take my time to create a good layout.
6. Move the water little by little from the small tank to the new bigger tank and refill the small tank with tapwater and transfer the fish and filters when both tanks contain about 50% tapwater and 50% "old" water.

Any suggestions how to do it in a better way???

Never mind. I just recieved a phoncall. The guy who was going to sell it to me changed his mind after we had made an agreement and is going to sell it to another guy. I can't belive it. It´s the third time I miss a 540 liter aquarium due to diffrent things..

Just test the water in the new tank before stocking. You will probably go thru a mini recycle in the new tank, even with moving the water and filters. I assume you will put the driftwood and sand into the new tank. This will move plenty of bacteria to the new system, but it will have to be fed. Make sure you add an ammonia source if your new tank is running fallow for more than a day or two. A few small, raw shrimp will do it.

Don

Sorry to hear you loose the tank due to seller backing down on his agreement to sell it...
[I think once you've accepted someones offer to buy something from you, you'll need very special circumstances to not follow through...]

Anyways, this is not quite the same, but similar to moving a fishtank from one house to another, something I've thought about and planned for a while now.

My plan, which I think will work:
- Catch the fish into a fairly big tub [about 50 or so liters]. Put a small filter that has matured in the tank at the moment.
- Empty as much water as possible into temporary containers with lids [big jugs or plastic tubs, haven't bought them yet, so not sure which it will be]
- Then remove all the gravel, plants and decorations.
- Clean out the worst of the muck in the tank.
- Move tank, water, gravel & fish to the new house using a van. [Filter is turned off when we move the fish into the van, then turned on about half an hour later when at the new location]. Obviously, fish are moved in the van at the last moment before setting off, and moved out of the van as soon as we arrive to new location.
- Refill gravel, fill in old tank-water.
- Replace "lost" water with tap-water.
- Refit decorations & plants.
- "refit" fish.

If you want to "express move" your fish from your 220l to 540l tank, I think you could follow the above steps, with suitable elemination of steps for moving everything into a van [unless you're a massochist and like lugging things into and out of a van, of course ].

To quick-start the filter on the new tank, there's two things you can/should do:
1. If possible, move the filter from the old tank to the new tank, and run both the new and the old filter in parallel for a couple of weeks.
2. Squeeze dirty water of the filter media from the old filter into the new filter. [If you have an external filter with hard media, rinse the media with tank-water and use this to fill the new filter canister or pour it onto the media of an internal filter].

--
Mats

That's pretty much what I did, and it worked for me...

I just moved the occupants of a 75g with gravel and plants into my new place and their new tank, a 90 gallon. It's about a 2 hour drive.

I bought some of the big (30 gallon, I think) Rubbermaid plastic totes.
I filled them with old water from the tank, and placed the driftwood, filter media, and plants in one and put the fish in the other two filled about half-way with water.
We then cleaned a good deal of the muck out of the gravel (there was extra, I had slacked on the water changes lately).
I emptied out the gravel in a plastic tub with rope handles (I usually use it for my water changes).

The fish weren't fed for a few days before the move, and everything went pretty well.
<Make sure totes are sealed securely. Fish water that slashing out, seeps into your car's backseat and smells bad.>

Went we got here, my boyfriend and I transfered the gravel and water and placed the filters on the new tank.
I added some sand (something I had been meaning to do for a few months now), and planted my plants. I topped it off with treated tap water, so it was just like they got a water change.

Last I put the fish in their new place.
Everyone's happy.

I did buy some Bio-Spira from Marineland and added it to the tank to make-up for any lost bacteria.
All tests have passed with flying colors so far.