How do you move a fish tank?

In My Humble Opinion
1

We’ve just gotten ourselves a new buffet for the dining room area, which is where our fish tank currently resides. It is mutually agreed that the fish tank would look much better on the buffet – the tank currently sits on a stand that is smaller and a much less attractive color than the buffet.

Now, I’m sure conventional wisdom says that the thing to do is to relocate the fish to temporary storage, empty the tank, move it, refill it, and then put the fish back in. But we want to avoid that procedure for a couple of reasons:

  1. The fish tank is literally right next to the buffet where we want to move it. It seems silly to have to go through all that to move the tank a total of four inches up vertically and maybe three feet horizontally.

  2. Calling our fish “skittish” doesn’t even begin to cover it. We have a goldfish who is about 8 inches long, and he gets a little freaky whenever we’re in the tank. Also, we don’t have a net big enough to haul him even if we wanted to. But he’s the lesser of the two evils. Our other fish is a type of catfish. He’s closer to 10 inches long, blind, and psychotic. Our local store has told us that this is typical behavior, but whenever he panics, he launches himself around the tank at full speed, slamming himself violently against the sides and usually hurting himself in the process. It is very disturbing to watch, and it can happen with little or no warning. So the idea of trying wrangle him out of the tank is almost frightening, but the idea of trying to move the tank with him in it is equally so.

So I guess my question is two-fold. First, from a physical standpoint, is there a practical way to move the tank without emptying it? It’s a 29-gallon tank, so we’re talking about 240 lbs. I assume a couple of strong guys could manage it, but maybe there’s something I’m not thinking of. Second, is there such a thing as a fish sedative we could use before taking on such a task? Or should we give up altogether on the idea of moving them while they’re still in the tank?

2

Partially drain the tank. Take it down to 5 inches of water or so. That removes most of the weight. The fish will just have to deal with it, one way or the other. But with most of the weight gone, it should be a matter of seconds to move the tank and start the refill.

3

I’ll second silenus’ advice. My wife is the fish expert but I’ve learned a bit by association. I have never heard of a fish sedative*, but we have done the partial draining several times for short moves.

Not sure what to do about the catfish. After the water levels gets down, can you place some towels in the partially drained tank to encapsulate the fish and protect him from bashing into the walls, etc.?

(Well, I have heard of wild fish collectors that use poisons that stun fish and make it easier to gather them. The fatality rate is higher than anything you would wish for.)

4

Before you do this, make sure the buffet is strong enough to handle the weight. Not all furniture is strong enough to handle a big aquarium. Try to check with the manufacturer if at all possible.

5

What everyone else said.

Move most of the water out of the tank into buckets (keep it - don’t throw it out). The cat fish should be fine with 5" or so of water - it’s only for a couple of minutes. BTW - empty the water using a syphon type method - not a bucket or cup “scooping” type method - it will stress the fish less.

So - move the water. Move the tank. Put the water back. E-Z.

Don’t try to move the tank full - it will wreck the tank (it will loosen the seals).

6

Never move a filled aquarium (the only exception being a 2.5 gallon aquarium), there’s also a very real chance the tank will crack or split, removing most of the water is the best way to do it, then drape a dark cover over the tank to cut down on splash damage, and to help calm the catfish

refilling with fresh water (treated with a conditioner if you have chlorinated/chloramine treated water) is a good idea anyway, especially in a fish-only tank, the beneficial nitrifying bacteria (Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter) actually attach themselves to solid objects in the tank (the tank walls, gravel, decorations, live plants, and the filter, tossing the old tank water won’t hurt anything, and you likely won’t lose your cycle completely, you might suffer a mini-cycle, but it’s hard to tell

definitely make sure the new “tank stand” can support the weight of the tank, I actually like those metal wire racks for aquarium use, I have a black one that I got from the Home Despot that can support 600 pounds per shelf, I have my 20 Long on the upper shelf, and a 10 gallon on the lower shelf, rock solid

7

I have read many a time that you should NEVER move a filled tank, and should ALWAYS drain it before moving.

But I must admit, with a 29 gal, I would be very tempted to lower the water level 2/3 of the way, slide the present tank and stand out, slip the new buffet in back, and have a burly friend help me do a quick up and over.

8

Oh, and another thing, I hate to bring this up, but your tank is most likely overstocked, when setting up an aquarium, you always want to use the adult size of the fish when calculating how many your tank can support

generally speaking, the guideline is 1" of NARROW BODIED fish per gallon, so your 29 gallon tank could support 29 Platies, or Swordtails, or any combination of small community fish, even then, understocking is better, it gives you more of a safety net

Goldfish are very messy fish, they produce a prodigious amount of waste, and they count for double their body size in calculating bioload, your 8 inch goldie is producing the waste equivalent of a 16 inch fish, generally speaking, even the lowly Comet feeder gets big under ideal conditions, a fully grown Comet can be 8-12" long

Catfish are also messy fish, and produce a lot of waste, your 10 inch long cat, lets err on the side of caution and calculate his bioload to 20 inches, that’s 36 inches of fish in a 29 gallon tank, heavilly overstocked, if you want to keep both fish, it might be time to think about a bigger tank

You might want to pick up some Aquarium Pharmaceuticals liquid test kits, for Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate, a properly cycled tank will have readings of 0 Ammonia/0 Nitrite /less than 30 PPM Nitrate, any ammonia or nitrite levels above 0 PPM are stressful to fish, Nitrate is non-toxic below 40 PPM, but it’s also a plant fertilizer, so a tank with high Nitrate levels will have algae problems

If you have the time, pick up those test kits, and post your tank’s nitrogenous waste levels

just to give you an example of a properly balanced tank, my 20 Long heavily planted tank is both understocked, overplanted, and has nitrogenous waste levels of 0/0/0, I actually have to ADD nitrogen to the tank so the plants don’t suffer, 4 Ml of Flourish Nitrogen will raise the Nitrate levels to 5 PPM…for about a day to two days, and I have to re-dose, those dosages are extreme overdoses for a 20 Long, it should actually get no more than 2 Ml of the Nitrogen suppliment, but my plants just literally soak up the Nitrogen as fast as I can add it

Oh, and that picture is 2 weeks old, the clear section in the middle is gone, grown in with Watersprite and Hornwort, I actually had to trim the tank back yesterday so the fish could have room to swim in it…

the best part is, the tank is basically zero maintenance, I haven’t done a water change for at least six months, and the water parameters are perfect, the only water that goes into the tank is to top it off from evaporation

9

Thanks, everyone – I (and I’m sure the fish, eventually) appreciate the feedback. It sounds like mostly draining the tank is going to be the solution. I hadn’t even considered the idea that we’d be weakening the integrity of the tank’s seals. That is of particular concern to me since the buffet would not do well in the event of any sort of water leakage from the tank. I’m almost leaning towards not moving it at all, although I will say that the buffet should not have any difficulty supporting the weight of the tank.

MacTech, it may be a little while before I have a chance to get into everything you brought up, but I definitely appreciate the info and will try to run those tests. In the meantime, I can tell you that our water changes are also very infrequent. The plants and the biowheel seem to keep everything in pretty good balance. Either that, or we’re doing a horrible job and our fish just happen to be the heartiest around. The goldfish is approaching being five years old, and the catfish is not far behind.

10

Sounds like you have somewhat of a safety net built in, what with live plants (always good to have) and the BioWheel, which is excellent for heavily stocked tanks…

as stated upthread, live plants have the ability to utilize all three nitrogenous waste products directly, and are more efficient at it than the nitrifying bacteria, in a heavily planted tank, the plants consume most of the waste products before the bacteria can get to it

the “Nitrogen Cycle” in a non-planted tank works like this;
fish produce Ammonia as waste, ammonia is highly toxic to fish, even concentrations of .25PPM are stressful, and if your water is on the Alkaline side of neutral (pH 7.4-9.0) ammonia toxicity increases exponentially, thankfully, ammonia is consumed by the Nitrosomonas bacteria, which converts it to Nitrite

Nitrite is less toxic than ammonia, yet still toxic, .50 PPM and above are stressful, and as with ammonia, alkaline water makes it worse, Nitrite is consumed by Nitrobacter bacteria, which convert it into Nitrate

Nitrate is not toxic, except in concentrations over 40 PPM, there is no bacterium that I know of that consumes Nitrate, the nice thing about the BioWheel is that it’s an ideal colonizing structure for nitrifying bacteria, and can support a larger colony of those good Biobugs than can be supported by a conventional power filter, it’s a great safety net for overstocked tanks

Nitrate is a plant fertilizer, so in an underplanted/unplanted tank, high Nitrate levels usually coencide with an algae bloom, the only way to reduce the Nitrate levels is with regular water changes (weekly for heavily overstocked tanks), or by adding a bunch of fast-growing plants as nutrient sponges, Watersprite, Water Lettuce, Hygrophilia, Wisteria, Hornwort, all these plants are fast growers and get most of their nutrients from the water collumn, directly competing with algae

another cool way of competing with algae is to get some Marimo Moss Balls, these are fuzzy round balls of what appear to be “moss”, but they are actually a slow growing, non-invasive form of algae, being algae, they directly compete for the same nutrients as the “bad” algae, plus, they look like green, fuzzy Tribbles, and the coolest thing about Marimos, is that under ideal conditions, with lots of light and nutrients, they will “pearl” (generate bubbles of Oxygen), these bubbles of O2 will get caught in the fuzz, and lift the Marimo off the substrate, and the Marimo will happily float around the tank…