need suggestion for moving tank

[jim532]

ok so here's the deal it's a 75 gallon tank and fluval 404 filter. Its been running for a while with no fish in it, the last fish died off 6 months ago (parents are not good fishkeepers i guess). Since then I've done a few water changes, vacuumed the gravel, water treatment etc. since I knew I was going to eventually move into my new home. Question is how do I move this thing and preserve the biological enviroment? I don't want to start over from square one with this thing.

 

[Purrbox]

Unfortunately since it's been sitting empty without fish for months the biological filter is gone by now. Without a source of food (Ammonia in the form of fish waste or pure Ammonia) the beneficial bacteria starve and die off.

 

[jim532]

well not totally empty, there's 2 apple snails in there still alive and kicking according to the younger brother. So if they are still hang'n, maybe biological enviroment isn't totally dead? How can we check for sure?

 

[Purrbox]

If that's the case, then you've probably still got a little bit of beneficial bacteria in the aquarium. To preserve what you have you'd want to make sure to keep the filter material wet while transporting. That should be sufficient to keep it alive. You still need to go extremely slowly as you start adding fish since there's such a nominal bioload currently.

 

[Kupcake]

Keep the substrate wet if you can and the media from the filter, and you should be good.

I also agree that you should go slow adding fish, since the bio load will be changing so much, better to do a little at a time!