Moving the tank to another house

[fireball99]

Hi everyone,

My mum's offered to look after my lotl when we go on holiday soon and I'm fine with this, but I'm unsure about the best way of re-filling the tank to ensure it's properly cycled. He's in a 60 litre tank at the moment. I obviously need to remove most of the water to lift it and place it into the car for transportation.

Would it be better to completely remove all of the water and place new sand into the tank and cycle it for a bit before putting the axolotl back into it (I'd use the filter sponge that was in it before as that's got the good bacteria in it), or should I leave the old sand and maybe a few inches of water in the bottom so there's at least a little bit of cycled water in the tank when I refill it?

This is perhaps a very obvious questions but whatever's best for my lotl is what I'll do. We'll have to do the same 2 weeks later when we bring him back home. Unfortunately, distances between my house and my mum's means he'll need to move homes for a few weeks to be cared for; I can't expect her to travel to our house every few days to feed him.

Anyone know what the best thing to do is? He currently gets a 1/5 water change once a week.

 

[leandrah]

I would leave the old sand in, because the substrate will harbor a lot of essential bacteria. And keep a little water with it,

I would do the same when returning home

 

[fireball99]

Great thanks

 

[Kaini]

That's what I usually do (I move my tanks every year because... I go to college) I'll leave about an inch of water over the sand.

Remember though that the beneficial bacteria will only live about an hour in those conditions, so if the drive is longer than that you're likely to kill them anyway.


Also your mom should know that the tank will have to be re-cycled anyway - changing it so much will definitely crash the cycle even if you seed it with established media (trust me - been there done that about a million times) so she'll need instructions to stay on top of testing the water and doing water changes.

 

[fireball99]

It's not a long drive so the bacteria should survive it okay. I'll probably drop him off a little bit before we go so I can check the water parameters before we leave. She knows about doing a water change while we're away so it should be all good

 

[bugdozer]

Why not leave a lot of axie turds in the water you are transporting, so there is plenty of ammonia to keep the bacteria alive?