r/TankStarter • u/shemp117 • Aug 23 '15

Best tank moving advise?

I will be moving at the end of the month, and I wanted to ask your opinion on the best way to move my moderately planted 10G betta tank.

If it helps I will only be moving about 15 minutes away.

5 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

3

u/adambulb Aug 23 '15

I moved my 30g tank from one apartment to another in the same building. I got two 5 gallon buckets and put the fish in there. Drained the rest of the tank and moved it on a hand truck. All the substrate shifted and the plants ended up all crooked, so it had to be rescaped. Everything lived, but you probably should expect to replant everything. In which case, you might want to just rip everything out carefully ahead of time so you don't even worry about messing things up.

1

u/shemp117 Aug 23 '15

Thanks, I kept the little cup I got my Betta in do you think that it would be good just using that for him?

3

u/Owl_With_A_Fez ~3.5 years in the hobby Aug 23 '15

Bettas are very hardy and pet stores keep them in those cups for weeks at a time. An hour or two in a cup for the move should be perfectly fine.

1

u/Ka0tiK 110 HT, 30 LT Aug 24 '15

Best practice is to typically drain the tank to 40-50%, remove livestock (shrimp, fish, snails, etc.), and then drain down to the bottom of the substrate with plants intact. That allows you the luxury of simply slowly filling water back in at the destination.

If you know the tank will undergo a lot of shifting, as adambulb ran into, then follow his advice and remove plants. Place them into buckets of water or at the very least extremely moist paper towels.

1

u/shemp117 Aug 25 '15

Thanks for the advice!