One of my hobbies is salt water fish. My 150 gallon reef tank and 30 gallon "nemo" tank contained 5 tangs, 4 clownfish, 2 grammas, 1 blenny, 1 goby, 1 angel, a couple of starfish, a few shrimp and a number of snails and crabs, not to mention the numerous corals.

When I got an offer to take a new job in Michigan, I had a decision to make. I was living in Arizona!

My decision didn't take long, but it's an 1,100 mile trip. The only problem was coming up with the "how". I bought 3 coolers from Costco (1 large, 2 smaller) and found battery powered aerators from the Bass Pro Shop that could also plug into the car cigarette lighter and "plumbed" them into the coolers through the drain holes.

In the large cooler, I designed a "jail" grid system using egg crate and zip ties that you can find at your big box store in the lighting section. During prep, I put a tag on each section so I knew where each fish was going. The 2 smaller coolers housed the corals. I used Tupperware bowls with holes drilled in the tops to keep some of the more fragile corals from breaking and to house the snails, crabs and starfish. I also had heaters for each cooler, but it is summer so temp was really not an issue.

Preparation

Loading...

I took the bio-balls out of the filter and placed them along the bottom of the fish cooler. I figured this might help keep the water fresh. I didn't feed the fish for a day or so before to keep them from making an extra mess in the coolers. In addition to the coolers, I have a large garbage pail that is used for the RO water. This is where all of the live rock is carried for the trip.

It took a whole day to get everything loaded up, including catching the fish and breaking everything down. Some of the smaller fish didn't want to stay in their cages and decided they were going to ride it out with one of their friends. They were all freaked out!

We loaded the car and trailer on Tuesday afternoon/evening and left around 6 AM Wednesday morning. The aerators worked brilliantly! I had to change the batteries once during the drive on Thursday night. The coolers stayed in the car both nights and the night in Texas, the temperature dropped into the 50s. The water in the coolers stayed in the mid-70s the whole trip. We arrived in Michigan on Friday afternoon and unloaded the car, but because I also had to close on the house, everything stayed in the coolers until Saturday morning.

The best part... EVERYTHING MADE IT!!!

There was one harrowing night where a hole I made in the egg crate let all of the bio-balls in the Vlamingi's cage, but he was ok, although not too happy.

Transport

Unloading...

I had ordered a 75 gallon tank ahead of the trip so I knew I'd have a temporary home until the 150 arrived from Arizona. I picked it up on Saturday morning as well as a kiddie pool. By dinner time Saturday, the fish and corals were housed in their temporary home and we went out to dinner to finally relax.

When we got back, disaster struck. We immediately noticed that the angel was dead (he was an extremely healthy fish). In the time I got him out, I started noticing that some of the other fish were not doing so well. They started dropping like flies. We tested everything, but all readings were normal. We added new water to try and help. After losing some more fish, the tank made a turn for the positive, and the other fish started to recover.

All in all, in that short time span, I lost a Lamarck's Angel, a Powder Brown Tang, a Yellow-Eye Tang, a Coral Banded Shrimp (one of a pair), and a pair of Anthias. After that, everything did great. All of the rest of the fish were healthy and the corals opened back up. The love rock started to smell bad so they went into the kiddie pool with the sand to settle out before they go back into the tank.

It seems I got the move part down, but not sure what happened the night after we got there. Seemed like the tank went through a mini-cycle, fast enough that I didn't catch any abnormal readings. Whatever it was, it definitely stressed out the entire tank. I think adding the new water helped the recovery.

Overall, I'd say the plan executed pretty well. Up next is the in-wall tank build...