Moving Fish

Fish as pets?  Ahh the relaxation.  Moving your pet fish can be a tricky and delicate business.  While I’m no expert I have helped move several fish with varying degrees of success and learned a few things along the way.

This article is very general and geared towards local moving,  more care and expense will be needed to move fish long distances.  Moving salt water fish is another animal entirely and much more complex.  Both fresh and saltwater aquarium hobbies can be simple and decorative fun or as complex as you have the time to put into them.  Again, this is just a general post to go over some basics of moving simple freshwater fishtanks.

There are several things to keep in mind to maximize your pet’s chances at what will  be these delicate pets most critically stressful days.  There are several things to keep in mind to safeguard their successful transport.  Much like “The Bubble Boy” who relied on a manmade atmosphere, our fish’s aquarium water, gravel, rocks and decorations and crucial bacteria make up the aquariums controlled environment.  Keeping this in mind, we want to save as much of their liquid environment as possible; the water.

Another important part of their immune system is their slimy coating.  This is a barrier against whatever might ail the fish and important not to damage it by touching it during transport.  Sorry kids of all ages, please don’t pet the fish.

Transporting the fish prior to move day is ideal to heighten their chance of survival.  Unfortunately,  setting up  quarters at the new residence with their familiar environment,  water temperature and a healthy colony of ammonia eating bacteria is hardly convenient for many.

Short of this, we want to make their transport as quick as possible.  Whether you use plastic bags, a bucket or styro- coolers, which can be ideal,  keep about 2/3 full of water and allow stale air to escape.  Aeration shouldn’t be a problem for short local moves.    With these proper precautions, many types of fish can stay healthy for an hour or more.  You will want to invest in portable airpumps and stones for longer moves and even for local moves to safeguard against problems.  You could pick up some anti chlorine treatment as a safeguard too depending on the quality of the filler water used.  By all means, transport as muchl the original water as possible for your fish’s best chance of survival.  You won’t need to worry about feeding fish during local moves, there’s a good chance they won’t eat for a few days afterwards which is fine.

If you opt to move your fish on move day you’ll want to get them back into their tanks quickly, have the movers load the empty tank(s) last so they’re the first to come off.  Please set this area up where the movers have free access to unload the rest of your belongings and have someone available who know’s where it all goes. Fill the tank with the original gravel, rocks and water kept as discussed earlier.  It’s best to start filtering and clearing the water before adding the fish, here the airpumps and stones can come in handy to buy your fish time.

Moving all your fish and household belongings in one day is a risky way to transport your pets.  Setting up the a tank beforehand and allowing it to stabilize is the safest method.   Keep an eye on your fish for a few days and if any problem occurs transfer them back to the cooler using the airpumps and stones as needed.  Again, there’s plenty of help online and some very helpful petstores in and around the Baltimore Metro area.   With any luck it’ll go so safe and easy that all these precautions will have seemed unnecessary.

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