Moving Aquariums

[VoidParadigm]

Considering moving my ten gallon aquarium into the living room.

Got any tips on how I could do this safely?

[Lolita]

Moving a 10 gallon should be easy. I carried my 10 gallon half-full by myself from one room to the next.

You could drain about half or more of the water and have someone help you carry it for stability. It's not that heavy half-full, and with one person on either side you should be able to carry it without sloshing everything around and ruining the layout.

Put your fish in a bucket during the move, then add them back in.

[rich311k]

Ten gallon should be fairly easy. Empty it most of the way, slide it on to a board for support and cary it where you want it. Full it only ways 100 pounds so almost empty it should be easily handled, please do support the bottom though.

[Scrup]

Eeeek @ moving a tank while half full... I always empty mine down to 1/2" of water at least. Ten gallon may be different, but once you've seen one explode, you never forget it.

[Lolita]

Eeeek @ moving a tank while half full... I always empty mine down to 1/2" of water at least. Ten gallon may be different, but once you've seen one explode, you never forget it.

LOL Well I was only carrying mine about 10 feet and didn't even think about it exploding. But you have a good point.

[Aeonflame]

I'd drain it right down to the substrate if i were you. Its much lighter and safer that way, and you dont get your design (if you have any) ruined by sloshing water.

[VoidParadigm]

I don't think I'd be able to lift it half-full anyways, especially not when I have to go down a flight of stairs and through two hallways. lol. I could only barely lift my five gallon when it was half-full.

I'll have to try it with just an inch or so of water. There's no way I'm dealing with those danios again, afterall. When I moved the school over to protect them from my witch of a gourami in the twenty it took three days to catch them. They aren't coming out until they die.

I'll take the Dwarf Gourami and the larger decorations out, then attempt to move it I guess.

Not really a for-sure yes or no on whether or not I'll move it. Have to get some screen and block up one of the holes on the top first to avoid little kitty claws finding supper. Then of course have to see if it will even fit where I want it to go.

[Deleted User]

10g should be an easy one. Just drain it about 80% (like a large pwc), unplug all items, and carry it to where it should go.

We've moved too many aquariums. Just didn't realize how much we'd like the hobby, what type of fish we'd eventually want, and that they wouldn't fit in the smaller tanks we started with.

The worst for us has been moving one 12g off the mantle to replace with a 29g and then not too long after, replaced it with the currently in place 38g, which will stay there. I'm scared to put anything bigger on that mantle.

It's no fun moving aquariums........ I'm happy when we set up our big ones, all we have to move are bookcases and a couple 10g's.

Good luck!

[VoidParadigm]

Woo. Finally got it downstairs. I emptied as much as I possibly could. Got it down to most of the gravel out and about 95% of the water. Had to leave the "leftover" schoolers in there. They so weren't co-operating with the net or buckets. (Zebra Danios? NEVER AGAIN!) However all eight of us made it down the stairs with only one little moment of ASLKJLKDA*censored*ALKJDLKAS! So I think it went decently well.

I never realized just how loud the output of the filter was until I moved it down here. I'll have to look into a DIY project to get rid of some of the noise.

Glad to have that over with. Whew. Thanks for the help, everyone.

Below is a small picture of it in it's new spot. Opinion on where the flowers are? They were a gift from Mother and I don't have a better spot for them (they were actually in that spot first.) Just wondering how weird that looks. =\

Ack! And I just realized I forgot to put dechlorinator in! Bye!

[domjd05]

LOL @ the loud filter.. I have banned fish tanks from my bedroom for this reason.. even the slightest trickle of water is incredibly annoying to me.. at least when I'm sleeping :11:

[VoidParadigm]

:lol: This tank (and most of my other ones) ARE actually in my bedroom. That's why I was wondering what in the world had happened when I brought this filter downstairs and it seemed JUST SO LOUD. In the bedroom it seemed non-existant. Sigh. lol

[Mith]

Glad ya got it moved! I suppose moving a tank advice would be more contingent on the size of the person doing the moving. One thing is for sure, water is heavy!!!!! LOL

[VoidParadigm]

lol. I'm a wee tiny thing.

[Garrett]

Fun is humping a 55 up a flight of stairs by yourself. Empty, of course, but, oye, I was done for the afternoon after that.

I've noticed the 'quiet filter, loud filter' problem too. I've got an AC30 that, no matter how full the tank is, somehow manages to get that splashy sound all the time.