Tips on transferring 180 gallon tank

[DiscusOnly]

I am about to purchase this tank setup from a local person. I appreciate any suggestions in transfering this setup to my home (15 miles). The setup is about 1 year old.

I am taking everything (13 discus along with 80 cardinals, dozen of cories, etc..) The fish are obviously the first to get transported but what's my best bet of getting the plants out and emptying the sands and setting the tank up again (keeping the plants alive).

One option is to get is professionally set up, not the transport. It is quite expensive so I am going to try to do it myself but I am concern that I am in way over my head.

Suggestions appreciated.

[dandestroy]

With a few buddy and a pick up truck, it is not that hard to do.

emptying does not take to long, just make sure to bag the fish properly, than remove all the plants, if you want to keep them, try to keep them wet in a bucket.

pump all the water than remove all the gravel with a small bucket.

rinse if you want and clean it there if you can. (my trick to remove the last bit of water is to run a small plastic jar to pick maximum water, and a the end use a big sponge to suck up everything).

The moving part is the hardest since it will fell real heavy. But clearly if you are 4 guys holding it with the 5th one opening the doors it should not be a problem.

Get yourself a long piece of wall foam (you know the pink stuff), put that in your pick up truck, and one you put the tank on it this will allow you to slide it easily in position. Secure it with a few buddy of yours or some good strap.

Drive carefully in the corner.

Once at home, make sure you level the tank perfectly. (confirm that levelling with the first few inch of water as well). Put your new media or the old one in, plant, fill it up, add a lot of prime, and put the fish back in.

In fact, if you could move the fish first to a new temporary tank while you work on moving this one that would be the best thing, and this would allow you to setup that 180 gal properly instead of rushing everything.

I don't know if this is what you are looking for for an answer, if not be more specifics on which part you need tips and someone if not me will be there for you.

[DiscusOnly]

I don't know if this is what you are looking for for an answer, if not be more specifics on which part you need tips and someone if not me will be there for you.

Thanks for responding.

Do you think I could get away with 3 guys? This is going to be my 3rd tank. I currently have a crowded 37 and 90 gal so I was looking for a bigger tank. I came across this setup at a pretty decent price but the catch was all the fish being included. This doesn't really solve my crowding issue as I will end up with about 30 discus. I am going to try to sell of the discus. I am going to get 30 gallon tank along with this so there will be some room for now.

Back to my original questions. I've looking at the planted tanks section on this site and I am very interested in having one. I saw this as an oportunity to have one set up so my question is "How do I get this home and have it set up so that all the plants are not going die within 2 weeks?". I want to save as much of the plants as possible.

[cbkok97]

Hi vlam,

I'm just a newbie, no advise to give you. Just want to wish you good luck with your moving. Hope everything goes as you plan.

BTW, the tank looks awesome and the fishes are so beautiful. From the picture, one of the discus has a blue face with a red body, what type of discus is that?

Cheers,
Brandon

[DiscusOnly]

BTW, the tank looks awesome and the fishes are so beautiful. From the picture, one of the discus has a blue face with a red body, what type of discus is that?

It appears blue in the picture but it's actually white. According to the owner, it's a white face red melon.

[wolfbane]

Your best chance at sucess is to get loads of info from the owner, light schedule, ferts schedule, maintainance schedul,e and follow them as he did. If it was me, I would make diagrams of the plantings and wood placements. you can set it up how you like, but things need to remain in the right light for them. I can never remember how things looked before I tear them up, Lol, I have to write everything down!!

[Derock]

I have moved a 180 gallon glass tank and it was "HEAVY" with only two people and it was a mistake. We did move it but paid for it the next day and we only moved it 30 or so feet. Make sure you find 4 good strong guys to lift only and make sure your passage is clear and your footing safe. I have also moved some big tanks on flat surfaces with professional fridge dollies and these save on your body and mind. The key is protect eveyone and the tank. Set up a tem. t ank or large bucket/plastic barrel with a cover and the same running filter with heater and have fun setting it up. You have a beatiful set up there ..just take your time and be careful and enjoy.

[DiscusOnly]

wolfbane: Thanks for the advice. I will definitely take pics first. I did not consider the importance of placing plants back to their location.

Derock: I'll take your suggestions on the hand truck. I am going to get the hand truck from work, I think that would come handy going down 10 steps. The passage out of the owner's location is the tought part. I can pretty much back up the van to my front steps and it's about 10 feet from where I want to set this up.

[dandestroy]

If you have a lot of time and not enough people, you can build a rack system on all sides of the tank with 2x4 and then move it with strap. But definitively you need 4 strong man to lift that tank, and one extra to open all the doors.

[Paula B]

I would DEFINITELY suggest a minimum of four people. If you're moving it on a weekend, I'll come help- you can pay me in Discus!

I just got a new stand and hood for my existing 125 that was already set up as a planted show tank. I didn't have to move it across town, just across the room and back, but the concept is the same. I did have to empty it completely and then rescape it. Check my post in the show tank section for how it came out.

Here's what I would do.

1) Fill a bunch of buckets or rubber maid containers with water from the tank, and start catching the fish. Get as many as you can without tearing up the plants, because once you do, its gonna be a mess with all the mulm you'll stir up from the bottom. At some point you'll have to start yanking plants. They should also go into bins or buckets full of water (you'll see why later). Try to keep each species of plant separate, it Will make it easier when you replant them. Once you start yanking up plants, try to get them all so that nothing is left in the tank but the last of the fish you need to catch. Make sure you get them all! Its not as easy as it sounds- you'll think you have everything and little fish will still pop up.
2) Once all the fish are caught, Send someone back to your house with the fish. Put them somewhere out of the way so you will be able to maneuver the tank. Drop an air stone into each bin/bucket. While that person is taking home the fish, you can empty the tank of all the remaining water and start scooping out all the substrate- also into bins/buckets. I wouldn't clean it TOO well. Lots of beneficial bacteria live in the substrate. IT will look absolutely FILTHY, but it will also settle in a couple hours.
3) Take the tank home. You'll be surprised how heavy it is. It won't really slide around in the truck, trust me. However to be on the safe side, grab some empty cardboard boxes to put in between the tank and the walls of the van or pick up truck. If the tank does slide, the boxes will keep it from hitting the walls. They will give a little if hit hard, but not too much. They will cushion it so it can't slam into the sides and scratch itself- You'd be surprised how hard you have to bang glass that thick to break it, but scratching it is not that difficult.
4) Put in it position in the room where it belongs. Arrange all your hoses and filters and heaters etc. Where you want them (in case you have to make more room anywhere while the tank will still be empty) Everything but the lights. Level it good.
4) Add the substrate and level it again. Then start filling it up with dechlorinated water at the proper temperature and level it again as it is filling if needed. The water will look filthy. You couldn't even see into mine more than an inch or two.
5) Put the fish back in. I actually put the buckets into the tank as it was refilling, to flatten out any temperature changes and so that I could just dump the bucket without having to net the fish again.
7) fall down dead exhausted and plan to rescape the plants tomorrow.

I left my plants in the buckets for over a week- but I put the light over the buckets after the third day and they made it fine. Just make sure they are submerged so they can't dry out, and you don't have TOO many in one bucket. If they are too thick, the ones on the bottom will start to rot pretty quickly and foul the whole thing. Do not put the fish and plants in the same buckets- you will miss a fish or two and they will die in those buckets, even if you think you have them all. And Trust me, by the time you have that bad boy in place you'll be exhausted- no way you'll get it all done in a day.

I am jealous by the way.. Good luck with it.

[Paula B]

Oh, and start early. Its going to be a a long day.

The set up and aquascape are the easy part. The moving is the hard part.

[DiscusOnly]

I would DEFINITELY suggest a minimum of four people. If you're moving it on a weekend, I'll come help- you can pay me in Discus!


Are you serious? I can't move on the weekend. I am actually going to take off work for this but as much as I love the Discus, I may be willing to give some up. I will have way too many.

The break down and transport is most of my concerns. This is what I told the seller because he is not going to do the tear down. He doesn't want to be repsponsible for any fish dying or tank cracking. I think the Discus will be fine, some of the cardinals may not make it. I think he would have been able to get more $ for the setup if it was broken down but it's a lot more work in the long run.

One more thing: He is giving me 2 30gal tank with a stand, I may be able to set that up with 50% water from his tank. Do you think it's OK to have 13 6+ discus in there with 50% WC? I don't want to mix his Discus with my batch.

[chirohorn]

He is giving me 2 30gal tank with a stand, I may be able to set that up with 50% water from his tank. Do you think it's OK to have 13 6+ discus in there with 50% WC? I don't want to mix his Discus with my batch.

You don't need old water, you need cycled filters. I'd split the 13 into the 2 tanks for a temporary holding facility and use 2 cycled sponge filters.

Don't kid yourself about the weight of the 180 glass tank. It's HEAVY. Take up any offers of manpower help. I'd recommend using those suction cup lifters as well. The kind that has a handle & adheres to the glass. Buy or borrow 2 pair. It's cheaper than if someone hurts their back while helping you out. Good luck on the move.

[Tropical Haven]

Believe it or not the biggest pain in the butt is getting all the gravel out after you drain it. I can give you a little suggestion that I use to get every piece of gravel out of the tank pretty quickly. If you have a shop vac, usually you can convert it into a wet vac. Go ahead and convert it and turn it on, start sucking up the gravel out of the tank, this will do it really quick and the rocks go straight into the tank of the shop vac. When it fills up, dump the gravel into a 5 gal bucket and do it again until the tank is emptied.

[Harriett]

My 180g glass tank weighed in at 381 lbs I believe they said--empty. I researched it when I was going to pick it up from the original owner. Four strong people is good, especially if there are stairs in the mix. Three is going to be very tough on the crew. (My tank went to the 2nd floor to set up).
Harriett

[Paula B]

Of course I was serious about working for discus. I can even bring you a whole bunch of new species of plants from my tanks to help with the scape. But I also have a real job so if you're working on a weekday 9-5 I won't be able to make it.

I wouldn't even go through the hassle and stress of moving the fish into separate holding tanks. Move it all in one day then scape it later.

With four of us, we had a densely planted and fully scaped tank emptied and moved, the fish in buckets, the stand and hood up the stairs, the tank replaced, re-plumbed and refilled in about 4 hours. Add your travel time and you're looking at no more than five hours. The fish will be fine in the rubber maid bins or buckets and they are a lot easier to move around if they get in the way than aquariums. You can even put the filters on the bins if you wanted an run them there until you are ready to set up. I wouldn't mess around making it more complicated by setting up holding tanks. Besides, if you use buckets/bins you can just drop the bins right back in the tank once its filled and you won't have to net the fish again. In addition when we set mine up, we thought we had plenty of room to maneuver- but ended up crowded and moved the buckets many times.

The gravel is easy. I picked up a couple rigid plastic shoe box sized containers at the dollar store and we used those to scoop out the gravel and dump into buckets/bins. That only took us a five minutes.

I do agree you want as many helpers as you can get. I wouldn't say no to anyone. Even my best friend's three year old came in handy when one of my SAE's escaped- she called out "mommy there's a fish on the floor" and we saved him.

I would set this up as a giant quarantine initially. If you don't trust mixing his discus with yours- than you shouldn't trust the cardinals or corey cats or any other livestock either, and if the fish have pathogens, they will be in the substrate and filters too. Set it up and monitor it for a couple weeks before adding your fish.

[Polar_Bear]

I have moved a 180 gallon glass tank and it was "HEAVY" with only two people and it was a mistake. We did move it but paid for it the next day and we only moved it 30 or so feet. Make sure you find 4 good strong guys to lift only and make sure your passage is clear and your footing safe. I have also moved some big tanks on flat surfaces with professional fridge dollies and these save on your body and mind. The key is protect eveyone and the tank. Set up a tem. t ank or large bucket/plastic barrel with a cover and the same running filter with heater and have fun setting it up. You have a beatiful set up there ..just take your time and be careful and enjoy.

Best advice given. Get at least 4 strong people