Moving of the Plants !?

I am moving. 2 hours away is my new house. Has anyone moved with fish and plants? How did you do it, or what would you do?

I went out and got a big cooler to help keep the fish's temp form changing to fast. My plan is to put most my fish into a 2.5 gallon in the cooler for the 2 hour car ride. Using another 2.5 gallon for my angles, that will fit in the same cooler.

Should I pull the plants? or should I drain almost all the water in my tanks till it is about gravel level and try to carry them that way. They have been planted and not moved for over a year now; so they are well rooted. Its just a 30g and a 10g right now. The rest of my tanks have been moved already.

If I drain all the water I'll have to add the water from the place I am moving to, which is about 1.5 pH lower than the water in the tank now. So I'll have to pull the plants and cycle the tank anyways. Or will the pH drop not harm my plants.

Or will the plants be fine in the 2.5g tanks with the fish (not planted just foating) for a few days while I get the tanks back up and running.

The plants are mostly:

Anubias (a few species)

Wisteria

Hornwort

Dwarf hair grass

Cryptocoryne spiralis

I have never moved with fish before. lol

Thanks guys!

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Comment by Derick cotten on October 14, 2012 at 7:00pm: the plants should be fine as long as they arent damaged too much or dried out. and for the fish im not too sure

Comment by LED on October 15, 2012 at 1:14am: for fish you need those buckets with lids. if you can close them and put some holes in the top to allow air in, youll be fine with fish. with the plants you can detach them and bag, or put them all in a bucket (mind you the buckets you can purchase from major hardware stores like Lowes and home depot) but if you dont want to rescape you can drain all the water, and cover the tank with plastic wrap to prevent the plants from drying out. simple fix

Comment by Nick Arnett on October 16, 2012 at 3:13pm: I moved a couple months ago, I did something similar. I wanted to use the start-up plants I was growing in a 10 gallon and transplant them into the 28g bow-front and a new 55g. So i just drained some water out into a 15g Rubbermaid container with a lid and pulled the plants up and tossed them in there for the move. That way I didn't have to worry about them drying out and I could safely transport the tank (and didn't remove the substrate). The big question is do you want to take this as an opportunity to re-aquascape or do you want to keep everything the same? If ya like the way it is, drain 90% of the water down. Most plants won't be affected by 3 or 4 hours without being completely submerged, as long as the roots stay moist you should be golden. Otherwise strip it down completely and use a plastic temp container until you got a good idea on how you want to rescape your tank.

The fish are a different story. Look at it this way: if you got them from pet store, chances are they came in a big box with about 100 of their friends all crammed into a an air tight bag and traveled a lot longer than a couple hours. However, I'm certain many of them didn't make the trip or even up to a week later (survival of the fittest i guess). With that being said, I'm sure you don't want that to happen your happy little swimmers. Our studious and astute host is on point with the travel arrangements that need to be made to guarantee safe and near-stress-free trip. I think the cooler is thoughtful for several reasons: the consistent temp (as you pointed out), the darkness (calms the fish), sturdy container, etc. But if you add the time it will take to drain the tank, net the fish out, put them in the container, travel, move and refill the tank, and drop them in... yah that's gonna take a little longer (in a completely sealed environment. That being said you may want to just go with the big buckets (with lids!) like "the Dude" recommended. Just remember it doesn't have to be a headache if you plan it all out and allow yourself the time to do it. Best of luck Derick.

Comment by ŦůRbö ۰ Ҏяѻ ۰ on October 16, 2012 at 3:43pm: Nice, I forgot the 5 gallon Home Depot buckets had lids, I'll go the route for the fish; less spillage.

My main concern was the large pH change that will happen. If I leave the plants, drain the water, cover it, move it, and fill it with the lower pH water will that harm or shock the plants?