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Moving a 200g Reef Aquarium!


Juiceman

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Ok, I have consolidated my tanks down to my 200g 7x2x2 Reef just before the move. Had a 90, 75, Biocube, QT since my inception into this hobby.

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So Currently there's

240lbs of Live Rock

50lbs of Marco Rock

40lbs of Crushed Coral

Numerous Corals, SPS, LPS, Softies, 2 Duresa Clams

4 Cleaner Shrimp

1 Fire Shrimp, 1 Coral Banded Shrimp

100s of Snails and Crabs

Hippo Tang

Purple Tang

Sailfin Tang

Yellow Tang

Porcupine Puffer

Koran Angel

1 Male Lyretail Anthias, 1 Female Lyretail Anthias

1 Male Bartlett Anthias, 3 Female Bartlett Anthias

1 Lawnmower Blenny

4 Clown Fish, 3 Ocillaris Orange, 1 Black Ocillaris, and 1 other one, IDK what it is. My GF bought him.

1 Spotted Mandarin

Hardware:

3 Vortech MP40's with Battery Backup, 3 Evolution LED's, 2 6' VHO's

ASM G4+ Skimmer

Vertex BioPellet Reactor

TLF Reactor for GFO

Full Apex System

Dosing System Controlled By Apex

ATO from ATO.com

ETC,ETC

How the ?(*&@%^$><@ am I going to do this?!

"HOW AM I GONNA MOVE MY TANK!"

I hired Mason "The Fish Whisperer" who specializes in tank moves. He works with a local moving company called "Life Way Moving" to move large tanks. He a one other employee handled all of the Livestock and Water aspect of the tank. Life Way Moving Co. handled the tank and moving aspect of the move.

Mason was very professional about his work and made sure to take all care he could for my Corals and fish. No mover could touch any buckets that had fish or coral in them, only him and his associate.

The movers "for my regular furniture" showed up promptly at 8:15 to get the layout and get working on clearing the living room so that Mason could have free room to work on the tank.

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Mason Showed up shortly after and took a peek at the job ahead and began to bring up his supplies and equipment.

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First Job Unplug all of the lighting and fans, so the Canopy could be removed.

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They began to drain water from the system into the buckets that will hold the Corals from my system

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He tried his best to situate the corals so that nothing would be injured.

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The first of the many 5 gallon jugs of tank water

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Continued Coral removal into bins and buckets, all of the regular Live Rock without Coral was being left until last since it doesn't need nearly as much care.

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The 5g Jug pile continues to get larger

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More Coral Geesh!

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Starting to pull the Live Rock

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Time to Catch Fish!

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Live Rock Bin

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Coral Bins, the whole time this was being done, a Air Stone and Pump was being rotated around the various buckets and bins

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Last bit of water out

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Hardware disconnect beginning

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I planned ahead and didn't glue the overflow pipes on the connections to the tank, and connections to the sump!

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NOW WHAT?!

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FYI the Tanks weighs about 500-600lbs unfilled!!

The Stand weighs about the same!

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Probably a good lesson for all the apartment dwellers that want big tanks. Seems like 75 - 90 gallons is a major dividing line in how difficult it is to move a tank, not counting moving and replacing coral. I would definitely want a permanent place for a 200+.

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Following. This thread made my blood pressure go up a couple points. Man how nerve racking this must be. I got stressed moving my 75 gallon freshwater. Lol. This just seems like a nightmare. No more tanks for me till I move to my permanent home

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Wow good luck. I live in Shadowglen. What area are you moving to?

I moved a 55G tank years ago and it was a bit stressful with no losses 200G is insane. I only had LR so didn't have the coral issues

Edited by Mark V
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Let the physical movement begin. Now I'm on the second floor so these guys have to carry this heavy (#& tank out the door, down an 18 step staircase and into the truck! YIKES!

Sizing it up!

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And we're OFF!

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Out the Door

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Down the Hallway

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And now the stairs?!

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WHOOHOO!!

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The Stand is just as much of a chore! Very Solid!

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Now to bring the Live Rock, Corals, Fish and Water down for the drive!

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And now we make the 30ish minute drive to their new home!

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This is the new home of my 200g Tank!

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Guys begin to bring in the water and livestock to get it in the A/C

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And away we GO!

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Now to start putting the Live Rocks and Water Back in. We tossed about 20g of water at the Apartment trying to siphon out as much detrius as we could!

might as well try a new aquascape!

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Threw in a nice dose of TLC Bacteria

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Now we begin to put in the fish and Coral

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Added a dose of ZEOBak

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Last of the water goes in, and about 35g of new water go in! Flip on the returns and let this this start getting skimmed!

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Hood Goes On!

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Just ran the VHO's to let the corals get settled and not over do it!

Alot of them are in different places now so I don't want to run my LED's just yet, I'll go through an acclimation light cycle all over again just like when I first got them!

When it was all said and done, afew SPS corals came un puttied from thier live rock, a few were "fragged by mistake" (Be looking for some frags for sale! LOL) but everything had polyp extension immediately, and fish ate well once the water cleared up.

I think I'm going to not glue frags directly to large live rock anymore, rather glue them to small rubble and place the rubble where I want the coral to be. This way, if a coral doesn't like where it is, you can move it.

I'm running my LED's at 50% for a week or so and will begin ramping them back up.

I added another dose of ZEObak for so security

I'm glad I chose to use Mason and Life Way. The boss was here helping with the move of the tank and furniture!

I will post pics of the new scape and what not once everything settles down.

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Thanks again guys!

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beautiful tank. i'm glad to hear it went well. i did this with my 200gal about a month ago and about 30mins of my fish being in buckets i started having big problems. needless to say i lost 4 fish before i even got them to the new house. after i put them in a holding tank (my 100gal) i lost all but the eels by morning. so now im taking a little longer to set it all back up. i really wish i knew what happened. i hope all goes better for you.

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Everything is clear and looks good! I lost one Cali tort frag, but that's it. My fish took some nips at each other while in the move, but everyone's eating and looking good. So with the execption of a few frags that happened during the move, we're good!

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