Moving my 20g tank across my room in the morning.

[BudgetR33f]

Any final tips appreciated

 

[Formulator]

Any final tips appreciated

Should be easy peasy with such a small tank. What is your plan?

 

[BudgetR33f]

Should be easy peasy with such a small tank. What is your plan?

I was going to remove half the water, and put the rocks, corals, and fish in the same bucket/buckets. After that I was just going to move it, add everything back in, and plug everything in.

 

[Formulator]

I was going to remove half the water, and put the rocks, corals, and fish in the same bucket/buckets. After that I was just going to move it, add everything back in, and plug everything in.

Sounds reasonable to me. Use it as an opportunity to scrub rocks if you have any algae issues and clean up the sand a bit. I would put the fish in a separate bucket from the rocks and coral and put a bubbler and small heater in the fish bucket in case it takes longer than expected to transfer everything. This will give you some comfort so you don’t rush things worrying about the fish.

 

[NewGuy8899]

With that small of a tank just get 3 5 gallon buckets put rock and fish in separate buckets with water. If you have sand, leave about an 1” to 2” of water above sand and then move.

 

[Extremeengineer]

If you go the 5g bucket route, which is what I would do, just be sure to pour onto something, like a bucket lid or something, instead of into your sand bed. Otherwise you’ll make a cloudy mess. I would take this chance to vac your sand and then just water change however much you end up vacuuming.

 

[OrionN]

I would remove all the water and the rock, don't disturb the sand. Move and pour everything back in, or change 50% of the water with move.

 

[BudgetR33f]

Thanks for the responses everyone, will send results a day or two after the move

 

[BudgetR33f]

Here‘s an update if anyone is still watching the thread or cares:

The move was successful for the most part. I ended up taking around 7 gallons out and water changing 4 gallons. As you can guess, the corals are pretty ticked off, but they seem like they‘ll be fine. Surprisingly, my clownfish wasn‘t bothered at all by the move and seems happy. As far as my parameters go, here‘s what I tested:

Nitrate: 4.7ppm
Calc: 410
Alk: 9.8 dkh
Mag: 1200

My nitrate is lower than I would like (I aim for 5–10ppm,) so I will raise that soon. My calc and mag are a little low too, so I will start dosing in the next week or so and start changing the salt I use. For some reason my alk is 3 dkh higher than usual. I tested maybe 4 times and got similar results. If anyone knows how to solve this problem or if it even is a problem, that would be helpful.

I think that‘s it for the update(s). Thanks again to everyone who responded.

 

[Formulator]

Here‘s an update if anyone is still watching the thread or cares:

The move was successful for the most part. I ended up taking around 7 gallons out and water changing 4 gallons. As you can guess, the corals are pretty ticked off, but they seem like they‘ll be fine. Surprisingly, my clownfish wasn‘t bothered at all by the move and seems happy. As far as my parameters go, here‘s what I tested:

Nitrate: 4.7ppm
Calc: 410
Alk: 9.8 dkh
Mag: 1200

My nitrate is lower than I would like (I aim for 5–10ppm,) so I will raise that soon. My calc and mag are a little low too, so I will start dosing in the next week or so and start changing the salt I use. For some reason my alk is 3 dkh higher than usual. I tested maybe 4 times and got similar results. If anyone knows how to solve this problem or if it even is a problem, that would be helpful.

I think that‘s it for the update(s). Thanks again to everyone who responded.

Glad it went well. The Alk is probably high due to the large water change. A lot of salt mixes have relatively high Alk. 9.8 dkh is perfectly acceptable. The key is stability with Alk, whatever your target is. In general anywhere between 7.5-11.5 is fine, but you want to avoid swings of more than 0.5 dkh in a day. Some SPS can be completely wiped out by a rapid swings of more than that. Ask me how I know… For now I would do nothing. You can either continue to run at the new Alk as your baseline or just let it fall naturally over time to a target you are comfortable maintaining.