Moving with Shrimp

[erica]

Hey y'all! It's been a while, but my tank is going well and the population is ever-increasing.

I've moved a couple times since starting the tank, but always within the same city, about 5 minutes from place to place, so it's been pretty easy. I would just drain the tank down to about 1.5-2 inches of water, drive it slowly to the new place, and add the water back in.

This time, I'm moving farther -- about 2.5 hours away. I have a few ideas on how to transport them safely and not stress the tank glass. 1 and 3 seem best to me, in that order...
1. Day before, rig up a lil trap with a water bottle with the top reversed kind of thing so it's easy for them to go in and hard to go out, then put some food in there to lure them in. Periodically remove the trap and put the shrimp in a 5 gallon bucket with water and some macroalgae to grab onto. Repeat until I've caught as many as I can, drain tank low (reserve water to add back in when I get to new place), remove things that might move around, and transport away.

2. Day of, remove all but like an inch or two of water (reserving the removed water to add back in later), remove things that might move around, transport.

3. starting today (three days before the move), move shrimp into 5g bucket with water bottle trap, get every single one of the suckers, then drain tank as much as possible. I worry about missing some of the wee tiny ones, but I think we're at a lull in the reproductive cycle. I don't have any berried shrimp that I've seen, and no tiny little larvae, so maybe I'll be able to snag them all.

Ideas? Suggestions? I'm sure someone has moved with a tank of these guys, so I'd love to hear how you managed!

[SuperProofer]

How big is your tank? I moved from Colorado to Nevada and brought a jar tank. It wasn't big, but I didn't anything to the jar itself (the lid was tight so I didn't have to worry about spilling. If your tank is bigger, draining the water down wouldn't be a bad idea to prevent sloshing over). I put the jar in a box, packed a bunch of soft material around it to stabilize it and put the box on the floor in the back seat of the car. They survived just fine.

I would just say stabilizing whatever container they are in would be the least stressful for them. I mean, think about it, when they are shipped through the mail, lord only knows how the packages are tossed around and they make it just fine. They may slosh back and forth, but as long as your decor doesn't fall over on them, I'd think they'd be ok.

[erica]

5.5 gallons, a standard rectangular tank, but only filled with about 4g water. I ended up moving some of the shrimp to a 5g bucket, along with about 2/3 of the water. They were fine in the bucket overnight, because I got there at midnight and didn't know where I wanted to put the tank long-term. Shortly after returning them to the tank, everyone was red and happy again! I have even seen some berried shrimp and little tiny ones, so that seemed to have worked well without stressing them beyond what they could handle.

The bucket and tank were definitely wedged firmly in place, hah. Thanks for sharing your experience! It was helpful. Just didn't have a chance to reply until now!