# Freshwater Aquariums > New To the Hobby ? >  Need to move tank

## Not_much_cop

Hi everyone,

I need to move my tank for the following reasons:-

1.) Need to decorate the Front Room
2.) Need to raise the tank once corner is finshed from 6 inches off the floor to about 2 foot (once new cabinet is either bought or made and placed in corner).

The tank is made from glass, 3/8" (10mm) thick only has silcone seams, is 4 foot long 2 foot deep and 2 foot wide.

I know the tank alone is going to weigh a lot but the wife does not want to drain the tank down completely before moving it and house the fish in a temp tank that is a fair bit smaller (3ft x 1ft x 15"), because we have a lot of babies and small fish and she is scared we will not catch them all and they might die etc.

Does anyone have any ideas or best practices that I should follow or that I must do in order to not loose any fish or damage the tank? Is there a minimum amount of water I will need to leave in the tank, if I am able to leave the fish in the tank while I move it? Must i still leave the air pump going while moving it? What is the best way to lift it by 18"? I do not have many people that will be able to help lift it and also the corner that it is currently in is not much bigger than the tank and so not able to get a person on each corner to lift. It will be going back in the same corner once decorating etc complete, all be it higher.

I realise that I will have to strap the tank to help support it while moving it around to avoid it splitting along the silcone seals.

Thank you in adavance for your help,
NMC.

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## Gary R

Well the answer to this is no......you would put to much strain on the joints of the tank, and the tank itself would be heavy for 3 / 4 of you to lift without the added wight of water in it.

You would need to Put your fish in a holding container and if they are only there for a short time they will be ok any longer than a couple of hours you would need to put a heater in with them with a small pump to move the water round, plus you would need to try and keep 50% of your water to use again.

if you are looking at not using your tank for a day or two you will need to move your filter unit to your holding tank to stop the bacteria colony that you have from dieing.

hope this helps you m8

Regards Gary

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## Not_much_cop

Hi Gary,

Thanks for that. I was hopin gthat this would not be the case, but since it is, I guess i will have a bit more work involved to get the tank moved.
I will have to move the filter, pump and heater etc over as they will be in the holding tanks for about a week. thats how long it will probably take me to plaster the three walls in the alcove that the tank will sit in, Paint them, and build a custom stand/cabinet for the tank. I can see this being a bigger project than I or the wife hoped for.

Regards,
Mike.

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## Timo

Lots of buckets and towels down. Air stones in buckets and heaters. Towels over the top of the buckets.

I have shuffled a 5 and half foot tank 6" from a wall once in an emergency and the wooden cabinet cracked. Scewed some suports on and tank was fine but i would never try to move a full tank again, would always drain down to the sand. Sold the tank in the end and throw the cabinet out.

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