Cali Kid Corals

Can I move an aquarium, on stand, via dollies?

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richiev

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I am getting my flooring replaced. I need to move my aquarium (thread with other details). I am trying to figure out how to minimize the hassle of this.

My plan was move everything into a temporary holding tank in my garage, move the aquarium into the garage, move everything back into the aquarium, then after a couple days reverse that. That will be a big pita, especially because I'll need to pull all the sand to avoid stressing the glass and I'll end up needing to disconnect plumbing.

What I'm thinking now is instead of doing that, buy some furniture dollies, drain the aquarium, put the aquarium on dollies, roll it into the garage, refill.

The tank is a red sea 500 on a red sea stand. The plus of this is there wouldn't be lifting stress on it and a lot less work. The negative is in afraid of stresses on the stand while moving it.

I was thinking I could also try and minimize that risk, if necessary, by buying some plywood and building a temporary frame around the stand. Put plywood on each side, screw frame around it, roll into place, undo.

Thoughts?

Particularly I'm curious if @robert4025 has any suggestions on this (I will not hold you or anyone responsible for anything that happens).
 
Have you roughly calculated the weight?
If the openings are wide enough maybe someone has an industrial flatbed cart 30x60ish u can borrow never seen any for rent. That would eliminate the the twisting torque caused by two individual dollys and any variations on flooring..If you do go the smaller furniture dolly route use the flat tops since the regular ones your limited with that step down unless you got the perfect size..You can always grab a piece of thick plywood cutting it down to a little larger then the stand then screw that down to the two furniture dollys kinda making your own custom size flatbed dolly.. I do like the idea of sheer walling up the stand as long as you plan for lifting access.Hard to picture what your thinking like screwing into the actual stand or build around it with no bottom? hard to do anything on the bottom why I suggested using solid platforms to move on top of but that so depends on the stands integrity.
 

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Coral reefer said:
I’ve done it
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Do you think building an extra support frame is overkill? I think it is, but I'd also be pretty pissed if I cause a red sea to degrade.

Though if I do something so bad that the stand starts flexing, I'm probably going to end up with an aquarium on the floor anyway as it topples over?
 
I needed to move my Red Sea Max E-170 within the same room and I was too scared to move it full of sand and rocks. I couldn’t image doing a Red Sea 500. Not to mention how heavy it’s going to be to even lift it to get the dollies under. The first dolly will be fairly easy but getting the second one under is going to be hard. Definitely have several people help you. @requiem and I just moved a 525 tank and stand separately and that was heavy just as is, empty. If you do it, I would say the support frame is the least you should do. Definitely not overkill
 
Srt4eric said:
Ive had to move a tank and stand together just because we couldn't get them separated. Thats what we did, lifted onto furniture dollies and then rolled it outside and up the ramp of a uhual.
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Was this empty though? Or did it have sand and rocks? Because that’s what adds a ton of weight. Especially wet sand
 
Minimum 3 inch wheels or larger will work a tone better with flatbed dollys..I would not use those individual casters they sell tend to slide out when pushing heavy weight...
What's your rough weight calculation? Stand? Tank? Pounds of wet rock and sand?
 
I think this is the type of move @Coral reefer was referring to might cause bad seams on Red Sea tanks lol

Whatever you end up doing Richie I hope it works out for you. Sending positive energy your way! Just balance out the pros and cons before you decide. If all goes well, definitely saves you time and work. If all doesn’t go well…
 
Newbie opinion here, redseas don't have a solid reputation with all the tank failures. In my head I would be asking myself am I ready to get a new tank? If I would ever consider trying to move one of them even with only sand in it.

I would also suggest figure out the day your planning to get stuff moved. See who's available to give you a hand with breaking it down. I think everyone here would be happy to give you a hand before possibly hearing about a tank failure.

I won't say your refrenced plan isn't possible, yet given your tank's brand it's nothing I would consider doing with even the slightest amount of confidence.
 
MarcosD said:
I think this is the type of move @Coral reefer was referring to might cause bad seams on Red Sea tanks lol

Whatever you end up doing Richie I hope it works out for you. Sending positive energy your way! Just balance out the pros and cons before you decide. If all goes well, definitely saves you time and work. If all doesn’t go well…
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Not what I was talking about. This could be bad for the stand. Shouldn’t hurt the tank. I think laying rimless tanks on their front or back is not ideal for sure
 
Plan of record is drain everything, pull fish and rocks, put all into a trough or containers. Add bubbler and heaters. Drain sump.

At that point I'll see how heavy it is and if I can get the dollies under while holding it steady with suction cups.

If not, I'll pull the sump out and see if I can lift then.

If not, sand comes mostly out and handle it as a full move, but leveraging the dollies as much as possible.

I decided not to put it in my garage, and instead I'll be moving it into a back bedroom. That's all flat ground, straight shot, doorways already measured and they shouldn't be a problem.
 
Broused the Red Sea 500
Aquarium & Cabinet Assembly Manual since I was curious never owning a Red Sea. Was a bit surprised how many cambolts and wood dowels used.
I see now why your thinking about some sort of external frame but that needs to be screwed into the cabinet for any support. Not sure if theres room to reinforce from the inside with 2x4's..Think the stand is very limited how many times its moved under load before it weakens the integrity of all those cabbolts and dowls..
Tank alone is about 220. If there's a two inch sand bed roughly thats 120 pounds of special grade with the 500 foot print. So 340 pounds conservatively plus stand..Doable to dolly..but honestly I would not take a chance with the stands build and do a full breakdown.If the sands old maybe good time to rince out or just renew..You may regret saving a few steps. Especially later down the road if something by chance happens it will fall back on what if I didn't save steps which hope never happens.
Good luck
 
Thanks all. I'm set.

I've got the holding trough setup with the first light over it and skimmer and gyre and a billion heaters while I get it to temperature.

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In getting this far, I've realized the huge PITA is not going to be moving the tank, it's going to be tearing things down and getting everything stable.

I also realized the idea of moving everything to buckets or this trough, then moving the tank, then putting everything in the tank, and in a couple days moving everything back means I actually have to setup the tank twice, which will be a huge PITA.

So I'm going to go that standard route and handle it as a complete teardown, move everything piece by piece, leave the tank dry, and leave livestock in the trough. That's overall less work then what I was thinking of doing Realistically I know that means they're going to be in the trough for a couple weeks because I'll procrastinate, but that's ok.

Thanks for the pointers, appreciated. My attempt to make it easy was going to make it complex.

Though this optimization I'm doing during the moving did work out, hose as a puppy chain:


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