house-moving tips?

[waffle]

It looks like I'm most likely moving house in July. It may be within the same suburb, and at maximum a 30 min drive away. All my tanks are less than 40 L capacity, too. So it'll be easier than most scenarios.

I thought about it for a while and came up with a plan very similar to this excellent article (thanks @OzShrimp):

Still got a few Qs though.

1. What's the best way to keep biomedia properly inhabited AND how long can biomedia go without water flow before the bacterial colony collapses? 

 Two of my tanks have inbuilt media compartments which I've filled with seachem matrix. In addition to that I have sponge filters in those tanks. If it's essential to keep water flowing all the time to avoid the biomedia becoming barren, I could bury the sponge filters in the biomedia within 20L lidded buckets and run them with battery powered air pumps.

The shrimp will be fine in lidded 5L buckets with moss and tank-water I think because it's not gonna get too cold in brisbane and I can insulate them by placing the 5L bucket inside lidded 10L bucket and surrounding with packing foam. But they will not be fine if there is no tank with properly working filtration set up at the new place within a day. So, if necessary I'll invest in battery-powered air pumps to keep the bacteria alive. Which leads to:

2. Any good recommendations for battery-powered air pumps?

3. Lastly, any general tips?

Any advice would be much appreciated :) 

The upshot of all this is I can start my 90L tank up once I've moved!! 

Soooo it started 2 identical topics for some reason, sorry!

[OzShrimp]

If your worried about keeping the air flow over the media put the media inside a mesh back and a few air stones underneath.

I have one of these battery operated air pumps but have never used it yet.

http://www.thetechden.com.au/Resun_Battery_Backup_Twin_Outlet_Air_Pump_AC_DC_p/acd8800a.htm

 

Use as big a bucket as possible to ensure you have the largest amount of your tank water as possible and minimise temp fluctuations. Given its winter i would wrap the bucket in a blanket to maintain the warmth.

 

Add as many plants as you can to help filter the water in the bucket or whatever. But get these out and back into your tank at your new location ASAP as the lack of light will kill them off. I lost all my anubias plants as a result of that. 

 

[OzShrimp]

@waffle

[jayc]

Ain't no one better than Ozshrimp to give you advice here.

If you have substrate, don't forget to keep that in water too. A large portion of your beneficial bacteria will be in the substrate.

[OzShrimp]

9 minutes ago, jayc said:

Ain't no one better than Ozshrimp to give you advice here.

If you have substrate, don't forget to keep that in water too. A large portion of your beneficial bacteria will be in the substrate.

I dont know if thats a good thing or a bad thing Lol

[jayc]

@OzShrimp, it was meant to be a compliment. 

 

[OzShrimp]

Yeah i kno i was making fun of me having to move regularly :-p