Post #706790 by swizzle on Wed, Feb 5, 2014 12:30 AM

On 2014-02-04 22:59, VampiressRN wrote:
All grumbling aside...I am worried about Rufus and I never have even met him. I know old fish need to stay in their own water when being moved...and slowly changed out for new water that is similar in chemical balance to what they are currently living in. Somebody that knows about fish really needs to also help. I am thinking good thoughts for him and so hope he gets to live amongst the friends who love him in a Tiki bar.

You are right Marlene, any fish, not just old ones, need to stay in their own water when being moved. You can't just physically pick up an aquarium and move it to where you want so what you need to do is try to take as much of the water from the tank with you as you can. The problem is that the bigger the tank the more water it holds and therefore you need more and more, and larger and larger, containers to transport that water.

You also need to transport the gravel if it has any (without cleaning/washing it) so that means more buckets/containers and again, the bigger the tank the more gravel it will generally have in it.

Effectively what you are trying to do is empty the tank, move it, and refill it using everything from where it came from. There will be a small amount of water loss during the process but a small top-up with new water shouldn't be an issue.

Once in it's new location maintainence is the same for any aquarium, regular water changes. Keeping fish is easy, but what you need to remember is that you are a 'water keeper', not a 'fish keeper'. Unlike all other pets, you are providing and in control of a fishes enviroment. If you move from one side of the country to the other, or to another country entirely, besides the surroundings your dog or cat will be breathing the same air. Water chemistry changes and it is up to you, the water keeper, to try to keep the water chemistry as stable and as consistent as possible. By moving the tank as i mentioned above you won't be changing the water chemistry at all so you shouldn't have any problems.

If you plan ahead moving a tank is not hard, just time consuming. When i moved house the tanks were the last things to move and the first things to set up. Not fun and very tiring but the best way of eliminating the possibility of any fish losses.

(20+ years of keeping fish with about 8 in the industry, both wholesale and retail. I was a fish geek before i was a tiki geek.) :D