Moving my fish

Hi Prof Dirk

I don't normally post here as I do not want to burden you with time consuming questions which I could research myself, but this time I feel I need your expert advice. I feel I need to provide a little bit of background information in order to explain my situation which could help you answer my question(s).

You may have noticed on the other forum I posted a new thread for my new tank build. In a nutshell, I had to move my main 5ft tank to another room in the house. I got hold of a used 4ft, cleaned it well, pumped out 60% water from my 5ft into this 4ft, netted the fish and released them in the 4ft. Filled up the rest of the 4ft with dechlorinated fresh water. I transferred my cannister filter from the 5ft to the 4ft, and floated all my plants in the 4ft. I have been doing 30% water changes on the 4ft every 3 days, and also feeding sparingly. So far the fish have been in the temporary 4ft home for about 10 days and they are fine; no issues, except for some aggression due to lack of hardscape hiding places.

Meanwhile, I cleaned out my 5ft tank and moved it to another room. Added brand new PFP, gravel and inert rocks. I started planting and took great care not to introduce any plants with visible algae. I suspect some plants could still have algae invisible to the human eye, but the idea is to minimize the introduction of algae. I have also been doing regular large water changes on this newly planted 5ft. So far I have no fish in the 5ft; only snails.

Now we get to my question(s):

1. I need to transfer the fish from the temporary 4ft to the newly planted 5ft. Which water parameters could impact this move and could possibly stress the fish? If I ensure the ph, kh, gh and temperature is exactly the same in both tanks, can I just net the fish and release them in the 5ft? I do not want to introduce any water from the 4ft temporary home to the new 5ft tank, for fear of floating algae spores. If this was not the case, I would simply pump out 50% from the 5ft, and fill it up with water from the current home of the fish, net them and release them. I know they would be fine with that. Note that I do not inject CO2 in either tank, so this is not an issue. Any other water parameters I need to check? Salt, perhaps?

2. Of course, after the fish move, I will take the cannister filter and install it again on the 5ft. I understand the gravel harbour some bacteria, but right now I have brand new gravel in the 5ft. Do you think this will impact my bio filtration with a sudden large fish load in the 5ft? I can't transfer the fish in stages, as I have only this one established filter, and it must go wherever the fish are. It is a good filter with a lot of Sera Siporax, and I have been happy with it's performance. Anything you can suggest? Perhaps "bacteria-in-a-bottle"?

Thank you for your time.

 

Hi Lauré,

It would be a pleasure to help you, the only problem is that it is the end of the teaching period of the first semester and all sorts of marks and reports have been be submitted and I have been very busy as a result and could not reply immediately.

In a nutshell what you describe what you want to do to move your fishes sounds perfect, you could not do it better. The filter with its media should be perfectly ok for biological filtration on the new tank, so there is no need for bacteria from a bottle. My only comment and concern is that you will transfer algal spores invariably through the water, the fishes and the filter, so you cannot actually get away from this entirely. However, a new aquarium has different parameters that are not friendly to algae and as long as you do not feed too heavily initially, you should have this under control as far as is possible.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Hi Prof Dirk

Thanks for the reply. I do understand that some algae spores may be transferred. I have also come to the conclusion that a lot of our algae problems are INTRODUCED to our tanks. But this thread is not an algae thread; I merely want to minimize to the best of my ability on a practical and safe level the introduction of algae. I HAD to move the tank and figured this was the ideal opportunity to test this theory of introduction.

My main concern was transferring fish from water known to them to foreign water. I do not want to mix the water and slowly introduce them to new water. But if I understand you correctly then this will be fine as long as I ensure the 4 water parameters I mentioned are the same in each tank (temperature, kh, gh and ph). I plan to move them over the weekend or early next week and will post here on the progress.

 

Why not take water from the main tank (5ft), say 50l per day, and put it in the holding tank (4ft) via daily water changes? That way the water conditions in the 4ft will be close to the water in the 5ft after a few days of doing this.

 

Hi Eugene

I actually thought about that idea last night and I think it is a good plan. I will do that for a few days and then just test the water in each tank to be sure, before I move the fish.

P.S. I sent you a PM

 

Cool, gimme a shout if you need a hand with anything.

 

Hi Lauré,

Just got home after a long day at work.

The main thing that you need to make sure that there are not large changes in are temperature and pH. Temp is of course easy to control and the reason why I say that you should be careful with the pH is because the measurement of pH is on a log scale. I would not recommend changes of more than one pH unit during these moves. As for the GH and the KH, your tapwater and the water in the aquarium cannot be that different and I think that you planned move sounds fine as far as I am concerned.

PM to follow later re your food enquiries.

Kind regards,

Dirk