When we are aquarists, we often ask ourselves the following question: how can I best organize the move of my aquarium? If there needs to be a change in the floor, etc. In this article, we will enlighten you and help you prepare well for your move.

A week before…

To start, you must do a slightly larger water change than usual a week before your move and therefore a slightly larger volume of water. Then, a few days before the moving date, about three or four days, you must stop feeding your fish and invertebrates in order to make them travel on an empty stomach.

D-day

You have to catch your fish and place them in the coolers. You will need to fill the cooler with one third of aquarium water and make sure that there is two thirds of air left before you can close the cooler. This air is very important and you need to have more air than water because it is this air that will go into the water and provide oxygen to your fish.

During transport, we can use the cooler as it is by putting water from the aquarium and the fish directly. You can also use fish bags like those used in pet stores if you wish. In this case, you will fill the bag with one-third aquarium water and two-thirds air. Then close it with a knot and finally place the small bags in the cooler. The cooler will allow you to keep an acceptable ambient temperature, to avoid thermal shocks and physical shocks as well. Once we have finished fishing our fish and any invertebrates, shrimps, snails, etc., we will be able to finish emptying the aquarium.

Remove as much water as possible to lighten the aquarium as much as possible and be able to transport it

As much as possible, it is preferable to collect the water from your aquarium , not to siphon it off and flush it down the toilet, but to collect it and therefore store it in bottles of mineral water, in canisters, in water jerry cans. And then you will carry them with you. Thus, you will have a nickel water to leave in your new accommodation.

Once the aquarium has been emptied of as much water as possible, there is no need to worry about your plants because the important thing is that they stay moist. And for that, we will simply cover the aquarium with simple kitchen transparent film so that it remains airtight so that we can keep the humidity in the aquarium. So you don't need to remove all of your decorations or plants.

The aquarium is now ready to be transported.

When transporting, you can put a big blanket around it to secure the glass in case you do the moving yourself. If not, usually they will do it themselves and they will also take care of securing it and putting it in the truck. If this is the part that is often the easiest and fastest, we will now tackle the second part where we arrive in our new place of residence.

We are already a little tired but we must take care of the aquarium as a priority and put the fish back in their habitat as soon as possible. We are therefore going to place the aquarium cabinet in its final place, fill it with the water with which we traveled, put the technical elements back on the road: the filter, the lighting and above all the heating. Then take the temperature of the aquarium water and the temperature of your fish cooler or fish bag. If the temperature is roughly equivalent to within one degree, you can place your fish directly in the aquarium. There will be no thermal shock or osmotic shock quite simply because we will have the same water.

After the move, it is better not to turn on the light and leave your fish in the dark. Indeed, a transport like this can easily have stressed them. Also, it is best to avoid feeding them for at least 24 hours.

And finally to finish, know that a move is not really the right time to change the soil of an aquarium.