Moving house can be stressful at the best of times, but what about the stress levels of your pets?
One of the most difficult pets to move house with, are tropical or marine fish. Moving an aquarium or fish tank, or fish from an outside pond can throw up all sorts of challenges to the pet owner. The sheer size and weight, or even an empty aquarium or fish tank, can cause problems on your moving day.
When moving home, tropical fish keepers and experts recommend:
- Fish food should not be given 24hrs prior to the fish being moved from the tank.
- Take the fish out of the aquarium while transporting them! It is strongly advised that you remove all fish from the aquarium and transport them separately (in water from the tank). Clean polythene bags should be used for transporting your fish, double bagged with an air pocket above the waterline. These bags can then be placed in boxes for transportation. If the fish are to be moved a long distance, a larger temporary storage container may be needed, with heating (if fish are tropical) and aeration.
- Any aquarium plants should be bagged up with tank water and these should then be carefully taken across to the new destination.
- If you possibly can, keep the old tank water and use it to refill the aquarium once it is in its new location, which will ensure the chemistry levels remain stable for your fish friends.
- The now empty and lighter aquarium can be protected by using cardboard and bubblewrap available from your local Lok’nStore storage facility.
- When you are ready to put the fish back into the aquarium, the tank must be treated as if it were new, with the water dechlorinated (try to keep as much of the original water as possible), the fish tank filter operating and the temperatures inside and outside the bags equalised before fish are reintroduced.
Posted in: Moving House