Moving fish into new aquarium and water

[lilystargirl]

I'm moving in December/January and will be setting up a 55 gallon. Currently, we have well water and we will be going on city water. What is the best way to switch the water over? I was thinking about keeping my 29 going for a few weeks and putting in the new water maybe 10% at a time. After like 2 weeks then moving them to the 55 gallon with all city water. I will start the 55 gallon with a seeded filter as soon as I can so that it can cycle for a while before I add the fish.  

Is that a good plan or am I overthinking it? I have struggled with cycling my tank and killing the cycle due to having to medicate sick fish. I just want to make the transition as easy as I can for them.

Thanks!

[Kat_Rigel]

I think it is a solid plan, but personally I would be a little more lazy about it. If you think about it, all the fish you get from big box stores are shipped from places with very different water parameters, even different countries. For me, I would just acclimate them as if they were new fish; I prefer to float 15 min, add new tank water, float, add, etc. A total of 3 times. BUT if you are interested in being more careful about it, that's totally reasonable. Personally I would not be interested in lugging all that water from one place to another. You could also do some testing with how much aquarium salt to add to city water to see how much it takes to get a roughly matching kh, gh, and tds, although there is going to be some variability in what sort of trace minerals are in there.

[lilystargirl]

Thank you! I probably am overthinking it. I just want them to transition easily. I will be testing the water again to see where it stands. I’ve started transitioning them to unsoftened water so that will help. 

[David Ellsworth]

Make sure to test your tap water in your new place first! I learned early in my fishkeeping this year that my newer tanks set up can struggle a bit due to 1ppm ammonia in the water (chloramines in the water). So check for stuff like that and to see how different it is, hard/soft. Like Kat_Rigel said you can likely acclimate them easily, but I like to know what to expect from my water going into the tank so I don't run into surprises, like surprise ammonia trouble. 

[lilystargirl]

Thanks. I’m overthinking it. I just have struggled to get my cycle going and with fish dying so I want to keep them healthy.