Tell Us About Your Craziest Tank Moves

[jonclark96]

This thread is inspired by a few recent threads about folks moving big tanks in and out of their homes (Christine and Rebecca). I thought I'd start up a thread for us to share our craziest tank move stories.

I have a few (which all oddly enough revolve around helping Matt move tanks) but the best is when Matt still lived at his house in Gaithersburg.

It was a 4'x2'x30" 150. Awesome tank, but heavy as all get out. About the only existing place in Matt's fishroom was a corner behind his water heater. Although there were four of us (me, Matt, Tony, and Michael O'Shea), there was just no possible way for us to maneuver the tank into place. I think we tried for almost an hour before we finally called it impossible and went to rearranging the entire fish room to get things to fit.

This story would be much better with pictures, but it was a few years ago...

 

[festaedan]

My craziest was getting my 120 out of a friends 1 bedroom apartment.

The elevator wasn't working so we caried it down the stairs. It wasn't that bad because it was on the 2nd floor but it was still pretty difficult. We somehow squeezed into my mom's car. I got to sit in the back and hold the tank.

Once we got back to my house, we had to carry the tank and stang up some stairs -that was the hard part. Once we got it in the house we started setting it up. To put the fake plants in I litterally had to get inside the tank because back then I was only about 4' 10" and the tank stand was unesesarily tall.

 

[JLW]

Once had a 1200 gallon custom aquarium that had its size determined by the dimensions of the freight elevator for the building. Unfortunately, someone had to press the button to get it to the correct floor.

I got to ride up the lift inside of the tank.

There's also the 400-gallon tank that fell off the back of my truck on 95. . . .
Remarkably, it didn't damage the tank at all, though I may be responsible for a pothole

 

[Becca]

Nice! Not only do I love these stories, but I am starting to feel better about yesterday's move !

 

[mchambers]

I felt pretty good about it once the tank was in the new place, but my shoulders and knees disagree!

Seriously, it was an adventure we will remember.

 

[ddavila06]

ha! i have a bad one:
when i had to leave my condo in annandale about 2 years ago or less i needed to take my 75 planted. Given that it is a gigantic pain in the rear end i did not feel like emptying it all out and gravel and palnts and all so i emptied it about 98%, left the 2.5-3 inches of eco in and convinced my brother to help me. we started off and about 50 steps away we had to stop and drop it on the grass.. he was totally pooped! from there and on we kept on doing about 30 steps at the time and fiiiiiiiiinally made it to the truck. bottom didnt collapse and i didnt have to tear apart! power of laziness won

of course about 3 months later we had to move again. this time i decided to redo it completely and now it sit on our living room again

 

[msjinkzd]

When we moved in my big tank, 7'x2'x2', I had three guys, with no necks, pinned against teh block wall in my basement (those who have been to my house will appreciate). The entire floor of my kitchen is totally, erm, "screwed" as well- big dig marks. It is the old school, solid glass, no center brace style tank (Oh, did I mention it was FREE). We finally managed to get it around the turn from the central staircase, and facing down teh stairs, then they were trapped- the tank had them pressed against the wall. I am still not sure how we got that last turn done, but i do know that tank will leave me with this house. If I move the fish, it will be into a new tank. that one was a humdinger. We have pictures of gouged floors, bruises, and blood to show the love for my big fish, lol

 

[Localzoo]

This thread is inspired by a few recent threads about folks moving big tanks in and out of their homes (Christine and Rebecca). I thought I'd start up a thread for us to share our craziest tank move stories.

I have a few (which all oddly enough revolve around helping Matt move tanks) but the best is when Matt still lived at his house in Gaithersburg.

It was a 4'x2'x30" 150. Awesome tank, but heavy as all get out. About the only existing place in Matt's fishroom was a corner behind his water heater. Although there were four of us (me, Matt, Tony, and Michael O'Shea), there was just no possible way for us to maneuver the tank into place. I think we tried for almost an hour before we finally called it impossible and went to rearranging the entire fish room to get things to fit.

This story would be much better with pictures, but it was a few years ago...

I do believe they were trying to documenting it hope they have pics


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

 

[jonclark96]

I was talking about trying to get a 150 into Matt's fishroom that already had 40 tanks in it...

 

[dogofwar]

...and we would have if it hadn't been for a water shut-off valve!

I actually ended up in a much better place (front and center in the fishroom) but we had to move half a dozen other tanks

Thanks for your help guy!

Matt

I was talking about trying to get a 150 into Matt's fishroom that already had 40 tanks in it...

 

[Tony]

Matt's 4' 150 was the first thing that came to mind when I opened this thread. That was rough. His 180 (maybe a 6' 150?) was no picnic eiither.

I've helped a lot of people move a lot of tanks over the years.... but have had the favor returned just as many times, so is all good. (Finally sold my truck on Saturday, btw)

Highlights:

Getting 180 into my house wasn't bad - it was actually the 6' 150 that was worse (No center brace, monster glass). Had a crew of 4 to get it into my walkout basement. Resealed it and painted the back glass in the dog room and Michael O'Shea was over to help me get it down the hall up onto the stand. Because we could barely budge it, we ended up cutting PVC and rolling it Egyptian-style down the hallway. That was easy.. the rough part was getting it up on top of the extra high stand - probably 40" off the ground. We got it in place using metal folding chairs to rest it halfway, but nearly died in the process, lol.

Taking Sam's 125 out of his third floor walkout was fun for sure.... at one point, over half of the tank was cantilevered over the railing, 12' in the air. Good stuff.

Jim Peck helped me put a 125 onto a shelf in my fish room that was about 5' off the ground. Pretty sure that injured poor Jim.

Moving O'Shea's tanks twice in two years...

 

[zenins]

Common theme seems to be large tanks and stairs

I helped a friend pick up a tank he bought sight unseen from someone who was getting out of the hobby.
It was a 6 foot thick glass no brace tank.
The person selling it was living on the top floor of an old Victorian house that had been divided into several apartments.
The only way to get to the top apartment was using the servant's back stairs, which was a square spiral staircase.
Basically, the steps where like pieces of a pie, very narrow towards the centre.
I think we slipped about 5 times going down those stairs, carrying that tank almost vertical.
Some skinned knuckles, just a little blood

After we got the tank into the van, I asked the seller, how she got the tank up there in the first place.
She said that her boyfriend at the time worked for a construction company and was able to redirect a crane to her house on the way to another "real" job :lol:

 

[DiscusnAfricans]

Matt's 4' 150 was the first thing that came to mind when I opened this thread. That was rough. His 180 (maybe a 6' 150?) was no picnic eiither.

I've helped a lot of people move a lot of tanks over the years.... but have had the favor returned just as many times, so is all good. (Finally sold my truck on Saturday, btw)

Highlights:

Getting 180 into my house wasn't bad - it was actually the 6' 150 that was worse (No center brace, monster glass). Had a crew of 4 to get it into my walkout basement. Resealed it and painted the back glass in the dog room and Michael O'Shea was over to help me get it down the hall up onto the stand. Because we could barely budge it, we ended up cutting PVC and rolling it Egyptian-style down the hallway. That was easy.. the rough part was getting it up on top of the extra high stand - probably 40" off the ground. We got it in place using metal folding chairs to rest it halfway, but nearly died in the process, lol.

Moving O'Shea's tanks twice in two years...

Matt's 150 was fun; a bunch of guys stuck in a narrow, humid room trying to maneuver tanks into tight places... I remember a lot of "How many engineers does it take?..."

Tony's 150 was heavy, but I think the credit of how we got it in there goes to Maria (She's generally the brains of the operation).

I've been fortunate to have friends willing to move 8-12 tanks from one apartment to the other to the next over a few years time, but as Tony said, I always tried to return the favor when I could.

Another common thread I see on these posts is teamwork. Its great that so many CCA members are willing to help each other out when assistance is needed. Luckily all of these stories have a happy ending...

 

[Frank Cowherd]

I bought a 180 and a 250 gallon in Columbus Ohio years ago for cheap. I was living in Charleston WV. So I drove to Columbus with my boat trailer. With help from the seller and a few ratchet straps I got them tied to the boat trailer and drove the home, about 3 hours on mainly two lane divided highways. Both arrived with no damage. I put them in my ground level fish room, drilled the 250 and it broke. The 180 was set up and used for a few years. Then we moved to Maryland. The movers did not want to move it, but I signed a waver and they strapped it to the back of the moving truck and brought it here. It has been in place since 2003.