Going to be a whole lot of work!

[barbiespoodle]

My 55 gallon is my oldest tank, been going non stop for over 30 years and I got it used to begin with.

And I have been in a constant state of dread for the simple reason, it's so old. Granted the older tanks seem to be better made, but how long can a tank last? I don't know, which is why I'm getting nervous.

So when I saw petco had their larger tanks at 50% off, I bit the bullet and bought a new 55 gallon. I would have loved a bigger tank, but I'm an old lady on a budget and this way I can reuse the stand, light, filters, ect, from the old tank.

Here's my plan, anyone please pipe in if you think this won't work or have advice that will help.

On my next day off I will start by removing the plants, rocks and gravel, which will be saved in tank water, for biological bacteria. I will then drain and save at least 50% of the remaining water (I'll be collecting 5 gallon buckets from where I work). The fish, other aquatic life, and filters will then go into these buckets.

Finish draining the tank, remove the old tank, reposition the stand to make tank care easier, I have it too close to the wall, place the new tank, add the old gravel as well as some new gravel or eco complete to accommodate the plants (the planted part is a fairly new thing and I need more substrate for them). Add the old rocks, driftwood and such. Fill with what old tank water I've saved and finish refilling with new water. Replace filters, which I will not clean before hand, heater, ect. Add fish.

I'm sure hoping this will work without a lot of stress to the fish.

Again, any advice is sure welcomed.

 

[connorjs1004]

Sounds like a fun project!

 

[ProudPapa]

I've only tried something similar once before, when moving a colony of really nice blue shrimp from a 5 to a 10 gallon tank. I lost almost all of them. The only thing I can think of that could have gone wrong was the old pool filter sand substrate, which I put back in the new tank, and of course added new since it was a larger tank.

Others may have, and probably have had, different results, but I don't think I'll ever use old substrate again. It's relatively cheap anyway.

 

[Flyfisha]

I have helped a local club member move house who has a 100 gallon tank. We did exactly as you describe .

My suggestions.

Have an air stone in the bucket of fish.

Do not try and finish everything on one day . Just get the fish in the new tank. Adding the plants can wait for later in the day or the next day.

Do not worry about the colour of the water. Think of a river in flood, the fish are perfectly happy in water that is not crystal clear. The fish will not be as stressed as the human.

As I wrote just get the fish in the tank, you can plant the plants later.

 

[LadfromLondon]

I have helped a local club member move house who has a 100 gallon tank. We did exactly as you describe .

My suggestions.

Have an air stone in the bucket of fish.

Do not try and finish everything on one day . Just get the fish in the new tank. Adding the plants can wait for later in the day or the next day.

Do not worry about the colour of the water. Think of a river in flood, the fish are perfectly happy in water that is not crystal clear. The fish will not be as stressed as the human.

As I wrote just get the fish in the tank, you can plant the plants later.

I second this. First class advice.

 

[barbiespoodle]

I've only tried something similar once before, when moving a colony of really nice blue shrimp from a 5 to a 10 gallon tank. I lost almost all of them. The only thing I can think of that could have gone wrong was the old pool filter sand substrate, which I put back in the new tank, and of course added new since it was a larger tank.

Others may have, and probably have had, different results, but I don't think I'll ever use old substrate again. It's relatively cheap anyway.

I had no problem moving my blue colony from a 10 gallon to a 20 gallon, but did it different than you. I made a totally new tank when I started the 20 gallon. Once the tank was cycled and scaped, I dripped acclimated the blues and added them to the new tank, they did fine. I left about an inch of water in the old tank and spent a week scooping out babies as I found them. I thought I left a few babies, the total count of babies I found in that week was along the lines of 30, seems the blue shrimp had been busy, lol.

Unfortunately I am unable to do this in this case. The size of the new tank is the problem, I have no where to set up, cycle it and then add the residents. The new tank has to go where the old tank is and I have to use what I have in the tank for the new tank. Just the removing the old tank and then placing the new tank is going to be a big deal for a couple of elderly people, but we can manage moving empty tanks. In short, the old tank has to be totally emptied and then once the new tank is in place, all that came out of the old tank will then be added into the new tank since it is such a balanced tank and I want all that good stuff that comes with a balanced tank.

I have helped a local club member move house who has a 100 gallon tank. We did exactly as you describe .

My suggestions.

Have an air stone in the bucket of fish.

Do not try and finish everything on one day . Just get the fish in the new tank. Adding the plants can wait for later in the day or the next day.

Do not worry about the color of the water. Think of a river in flood, the fish are perfectly happy in water that is not crystal clear. The fish will not be as stressed as the human.

As I wrote just get the fish in the tank, you can plant the plants later.

Great advice. My problem being that I only get one day off so would prefer to get as much done as possible on that day off. I'm also prepared to get up early (1am), and stay up later to make sure things are going well.

But you are right about the airstones, that is in my plans. I have plenty of them and plenty of pumps to power them.

And while I'm use to this tank having crystal clear water, as do all my tanks, kind of a thing with me, I am more than prepared to put up with yucky water for awhile as long as my kids are fine. Might drive me crazy, but I'll deal.

Side note. I was telling the top boss where I work about my plans because I need his permission to take home the 5 gallon buckets from bakery, it's against company policy to take home anything even if it's being thrown out. He use to be in the hobby and of course understood my need. But he also shook his head and told me I was in for a whole lot of work and we talked about how to go about this. Was kind of nice having someone at work that understood, I'm the only crazy fish lady there.

 

[barbiespoodle]

Well Wednesday is the day, I hate not knowing my day off until Saturday before the week in question and this time I was forgotten as far as even getting a scheduled so had to wait until today to find out my day off.

I have been doing as much pre work as possible so on Wednesday I can be up bright and early, around 2 am, and start the whole dismantling process.

Got my co-workers girlfriend in bakery to save me buckets, so put buckets are off my to do list, got enough to save water and house fish. 3 am this morning I rinsed the addition 25 pounds of gravel I'll be adding to the existing gravel (keeping all existing gravel since it's so full of bb but needed more to keep down the plants that have grown so much) , check that off my list. Decided my plants are too big to fit into buckets so will be filling the bathtub, check that off my how to do it list.

Will be scrubbing the new tank tomorrow after work, will be running the garden hose inside and using my ever trusty magic eraser, check that off my still to do list.

Have the hubby on clearing off a spot in the basement to place the old tank so I can grab it easily if the new tank decides to leak (knocking on wood that don't happen but I couldn't convince the hubby to let me fill it to make sure).

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but I'll deal with what ever comes up as it comes up. Can't say I'm looking forward to this,

Here's hoping things all go well. Of course they won't, I couldn't be that lucky, so here's hoping that things don't go too far wrong, lol.

 

[Fisch]

Wow, you have it well planned. It will be nice. Do you plan to decorate a in a different layout?

 

[barbiespoodle]

Wow, you have it well planned. It will be nice. Do you plan to decorate a in a different layout?

I'm sure once it's all said and done there will be differences. After all, I'll have a clean pallet to work with.

This is how it is now. As you can see, there is some work to do with it and since I'm basically able to start new, I can make changes to make it better, or at least more to my taste.

My biggest problem with this tank is the trio of silver dollars, aka, the plant assassins, lol. I no more think I have a plant that they don't treat as a midnight snack when they actually treat it as a midnight snack, lol.

But yea, the rearranging will be not only the most fascinating part but also the most frustrating part.

Can't wait until this whole thing is said and done and I'm able to post pics of the final results.

 

[Basil]

How did it go?

 

[barbiespoodle]

Finally up to posting some pics.

I started at 3am and a few hours later started to notice signs of a cold coming on. I kept at it since at that point there was no turning back, but by the time I had it to where I could safely leave it, I was pretty much down for the count, which is rare for me. And oh boy was I ever sick. Got tested for covid of course, but just had a very nasty summer cold. I swear I haven't been this far down since I had to go through cancer surgery and treatment.

Long story short, didn't lose a single fish, actually got a count, 56 individual fish and uncounted snails. And the biggest bonus, the water remained clear so I must have done something right.

Here's a couple pics. Still some tweeking to do, but I'm slowly getting there. Wish my phone took better pics.

 

[ModelAFish]

Very nice

 

[Yeoy]

Finally up to posting some pics.

I started at 3am and a few hours later started to notice signs of a cold coming on. I kept at it since at that point there was no turning back, but by the time I had it to where I could safely leave it, I was pretty much down for the count, which is rare for me. And oh boy was I ever sick. Got tested for covid of course, but just had a very nasty summer cold. I swear I haven't been this far down since I had to go through cancer surgery and treatment.

Long story short, didn't lose a single fish, actually got a count, 56 individual fish and uncounted snails. And the biggest bonus, the water remained clear so I must have done something right.

Here's a couple pics. Still some tweeking to do, but I'm slowly getting there. Wish my phone took better pics.

Moving tanks is always a stressful moment, glad it all went well! Your scape looks awesome to, nice one.

 

[barbiespoodle]

Thank you. Just wish I had more energy when I did it to get rid of those blasted nerite snail eggs. I love the look and cleaning abilities of the nerites and the non producing thing is also a big time plus since I have a problem with other snails over populating, but I sure hate having those white dots everywhere and they are about next to impossible to get rid of. Oh the things we put up with when it comes to our pets, lol.

 

[Mhamilton0911]

Glad things worked out well for you, apart from feeling off during all the work of it. I'm planning something very similar! Currently trying to talk myself into getting it done. I have a old 48g bowfront that's getting replaced with a 75g. The only spot in the house is where the existing tank is. So I have similar plans, yank and bucket the plants, net fish, bucket half the water, remove all the water in old tank, move old tank and stand, move in new ones, slap sand in, fill, fish, sleep, scape and plant. I'm tired just typing this out. Oh, forgot to include the large volume of coffee consumed during this event.

 

[Marlene327]

Glad things worked out well for you, apart from feeling off during all the work of it. I'm planning something very similar! Currently trying to talk myself into getting it done. I have a old 48g bowfront that's getting replaced with a 75g. The only spot in the house is where the existing tank is. So I have similar plans, yank and bucket the plants, net fish, bucket half the water, remove all the water in old tank, move old tank and stand, move in new ones, slap sand in, fill, fish, sleep, scape and plant. I'm tired just typing this out. Oh, forgot to include the large volume of coffee consumed during this event.

Wishing you luck with that! I have a 40 gallon wide and always wished for a 55 to replace it. Like Barbie, I'm older and just got happy with what I had. Hubby probably would stop me anyway! Reading all she went through, and all you wrote, has made me tired and I just woke up! I'm 7.5 weeks out from a knee replacement and it just won't heal right, I'm in so much pain. Got a whopping 5 hours of sleep this time, more than since surgery. My 4 tanks have had only minimal care for 2 months. I planned to clean the largest yesterday but we had thunderstorms all day. I don't know when I'll find the strength to start. I'd love to change my plants around too but that's out.

Kudos to you all getting it done!!

 

[Monkeypoint]

Will be scrubbing the new tank tomorrow after work, will be running the garden hose inside and using my ever trusty magic eraser, check that off my still to do list.

Can you explain this part? I didn't know a new tank needed scrubbing. What's the magic erasure for? This whole thread is very helpful!

 

[barbiespoodle]

A new tank should always be cleaned out first because most have an open top at the lfs and who knows what has drifted into it. Plus there always seems to be splashes of silicon here and there on the glass, adhesive from what ever the manufacturer attached to the tank, in my case, samples of their product.

What I ended up doing because I didn't have the tank in a good place to clean easily is to add a couple buckets of water in which I added a very mild dose of vinegar, maybe a half a cup per 5 gallons of water. Vinegar is natural and any residue evaporates once the water is removed. But giving it a good cleaning with just plain water will do.

Magic eraser is Mr. Clean magic eraser. I keep several just for inner tank glass cleaning and they are used for nothing else. I only have two tanks with an algae problem because, first they are by a window, but mostly because they are specialty tanks and don't have some sort of algae eater. Even the tanks with fantastic algae crews can get a slight film over the glass over time, again, the magic eraser takes care of it with little effort on my part, a magic eraser cuts right through anything on the glass without scratching the glass. Just make sure you get the one that is just a plain magic eraser, some have soap added and the package will say if it does.

Wishing you luck with that! I have a 40 gallon wide and always wished for a 55 to replace it. Like Barbie, I'm older and just got happy with what I had. Hubby probably would stop me anyway! Reading all she went through, and all you wrote, has made me tired and I just woke up! I'm 7.5 weeks out from a knee replacement and it just won't heal right, I'm in so much pain. Got a whopping 5 hours of sleep this time, more than since surgery. My 4 tanks have had only minimal care for 2 months. I planned to clean the largest yesterday but we had thunderstorms all day. I don't know when I'll find the strength to start. I'd love to change my plants around too but that's out.

Kudos to you all getting it done!!

Oh sweetie, sending all my good thoughts your way. I've somewhat been where you're at when I went through my cancer surgery. Two years later and I'm still dealing with the repercussions and have to face that it's going to be a fact of life for me. And my tanks did have to suffer during the worse of it. I'm hoping you can get to the place I'm at now in that my tanks are more of a therapy for me in that they are an escape from not only my physical problems but also from the need to work a far to demanding job at my age and physical abilities. And one thing I learned from my experience is to make my tanks as balanced as possible so if need be, most can go a long time with no care other than feeding and even that can be put off a few days if need be. So when I'm good, I destress by fussing with them or just sitting in front of them. When I'm bad, I don't have to worry about them.

And a 40 long really isn't all that different from a 55 gallon because it's just as long. Take it from me, I can so so much more with my 20 long than I can with my 20 highs. Most fish need the length more than they need the height.

 

[Monkeypoint]

I would never have known that. I’m not planning on buying a new tank at the moment but who knows, maybe down the road I will. I wouldn’t have known to clean it first. I may make swapping stands a winter project though.