I am selling my 120 gallon freshwater aquarium with all the fish, and I need some expert advice on how much water to transfer to keep the cycle. The tank has a canister filter, a wet/dry and 150lbs of gravel which all have live bacteria populations. To keep the tank cycled through the move, I am thinking I should put all the gravel and bio-media in a large bucket with a little water and keep everything moist. Then put 60 gallons of water in buckets, and discard of the other 60. This is basically the same thing as doing a 50% water change. Right? How much water would you keep if this was your tank?

I'll keep the fish in the buckets with the transfer water. Any comments, ideas, opinions?

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120 Gal. Reef tank coming this june. This is going to be awesome.

You really don't need to keep all of the water, Just enough to keep gravel, deco and filters wet. Put the fish in a bucket or 2 with tank water should be all you need. As long as the filters are kept wet and it takes less than 10 hours you should be fine. Set up tank, dechlorinate, add filters then your good to go. Just drip acclimate the fish to get use to new water.

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SUCCESS IS MEASURED BY YEARS, NOT MONTHS!!!
220 Tank build
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Im not bringing ALL the water, just half of it. So your saying I dont even need to bring that much? Just keep everything wet and enough water to hold the fish and i'll be fine?

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120 Gal. Reef tank coming this june. This is going to be awesome.

yep thats what I am saying. I moved 9 tanks that way across town when we moved, didn't even get a mini cycle.

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SUCCESS IS MEASURED BY YEARS, NOT MONTHS!!!
220 Tank build
http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/sta...late-3253.html

The majority of your bacteria are in your gravel, on your ornaments, in your filter, etc. Very little of it is actually in the water, so yes...follow what Susan said, it'll work out just fine for you.

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Depending on the distance you're moving it, you could get a battery powered aerator from Dick's sporting goods or some place like that to place in the bucket with fish. My last tank I bought was delivered to me with about 20 fish, 3.5hrs away. One of those was used to help the fish out. Not sure if it is needed, but I didn't have any fish die.

Those areators are nice when moving fish, especially if they are bigger fish. But not really needed unless its going to be a few hours. They don't ship fish with them and they can handle a couple of days without them.

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SUCCESS IS MEASURED BY YEARS, NOT MONTHS!!!
220 Tank build
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The drive is only suposed to be 30 minutes, but could be up to 1 hour in LA traffic.

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120 Gal. Reef tank coming this june. This is going to be awesome.

In LA traffic it could take longer than that, hahahaha. Been there to busy for me.

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SUCCESS IS MEASURED BY YEARS, NOT MONTHS!!!
220 Tank build
http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/sta...late-3253.html

I thought they were closing a 10mi portion of 405 this weekend? I heard traffic was going to be nightmare-ish.

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125gal - 10" bala, 10" irridescent, 6 gourami's, 2 blood parrots, 1 common pleco, 1 Blue Lobster, & 1 Morimo Ball - Rena XP3
75gal - 5 balas, 2 firemouths, 2 albino oscars, 1 common pleco, 6" firemouth - Rena XP3

Yup. 405 will be closed July 16 & 17th. Thats why the tank is going tomorrow, and not friday.
Quote from KABC 7

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120 Gal. Reef tank coming this june. This is going to be awesome.

Ha, I just happened to hear it today, out here in philadelphia suburbs, listening to xm radio. Something to be said for national radio service.

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125gal - 10" bala, 10" irridescent, 6 gourami's, 2 blood parrots, 1 common pleco, 1 Blue Lobster, & 1 Morimo Ball - Rena XP3
75gal - 5 balas, 2 firemouths, 2 albino oscars, 1 common pleco, 6" firemouth - Rena XP3

Get some black trash bags ill with water add fish and air, tie them off and place them in a cooler without the ice do add some tepid water....

Imho every drop you possibly can.

my .02

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fw leiden since 1979, fo salt since 1979, mixed reef 55g 2002-2009. Strong emphasis on the tank taking care of itself. Balanced with plant life, no water changes, tap water, no filters in FW. Only dosing calcium, alk, mag in marine reef tanks. http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/my-...ods-26410.html
recent tanks (till 2009) 7 years- 10g FW leiden 7 yrs, 55g mixed reef 7, 2 yrs, 20g FW leiden, 10 g fw leiden , 29g mixed reef, current tank 55g leiden

Why Bob, there isn't enough bacteria in it to do much good?

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SUCCESS IS MEASURED BY YEARS, NOT MONTHS!!!
220 Tank build
http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/sta...late-3253.html

The guy I bought the tank I mentioned previously brought about 50g of water when he brought the tank to my house. Just seemed like a logistic nightmare.

not a bacteria (directly) issue.

The idea IMHO is to make the fish think nothing has changed as much as possible. Therefore move all the water you can so any changes are small.


Actually what I have done is take whatever water I can move and refill the tank with it. Then add small amounts over a week or two to fill the tank instead of completely filling the tank.

But what would one expect from beaslbob anyway?

my .02

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fw leiden since 1979, fo salt since 1979, mixed reef 55g 2002-2009. Strong emphasis on the tank taking care of itself. Balanced with plant life, no water changes, tap water, no filters in FW. Only dosing calcium, alk, mag in marine reef tanks. http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/my-...ods-26410.html
recent tanks (till 2009) 7 years- 10g FW leiden 7 yrs, 55g mixed reef 7, 2 yrs, 20g FW leiden, 10 g fw leiden , 29g mixed reef, current tank 55g leiden

I can see that with the beaslbob build since no water changes are done in the first place it would put the fish into shock with 100% new water, but if its a tank that gets water changes you don't need to take any water.

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SUCCESS IS MEASURED BY YEARS, NOT MONTHS!!!
220 Tank build
http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/sta...late-3253.html

Just take enough water to keep gravel and filter media wet as this will be where most of your bacteria will be

I agree with what's been said. Just make sure you acclimate the fish slowly to the new water..... the params could be really different.

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20g Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981
36g Bow Front Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981