The lighting conditions had changed at the Living Planet Aquarium's temporary Gateway home. A nearby pump no longer whirred. The changes could only mean one thing: moving day.

"They're very smart," said Brandon Eyre, the aquarium's curator. "They know something is going on."

The brown-banded bamboo shark sat motionless on top of a smaller, white-spotted bamboo shark as the aquarium staff made final move preparations. Other finned predators slowly skimmed the edges of the tank.

Before heading to the aquarium's future temporary home in Sandy, the nine sharks will spend a few weeks at Salt Lake Community College's Redwood Road campus. The aquarium is moving into a larger location in Sandy to accommodate more educational group visits as a major step before building a planned permanent home in Salt Lake City.

Aquarium officials hope to secure space on the November ballot to ask Salt Lake County voters for a $34 million bond for a permanent home.

Beyond money, getting these creatures to any of their future homes requires water. Lots of water.

On Monday morning, Eyre stood in the back of a 23-foot-long rental truck and watched water trickle from a green garden hose into a 1,400-gallon tank strapped to the walls. The hose siphoned water from the shark tank to maintain proper salinity for the trip.

Staff members soon realized this system could take hours. Another low-tech solution was needed.

Back at the aquarium, Brandy Glines, one of the aquarium's key shark wranglers, placed one end of a long plastic tube in the tank and set the other end in a gray plastic cart once destined for a life of trash hauling. After Glines briefly sucked on one end of the tube, water began pouring into the wheeled bin.

Crews pushed the carts to the truck and dumped the water into the tub to speed the filling process.

Soon, the first sharks were targeted for eviction.

Eyre, armed with a supersized fish net, stood on a balance beam-width walkway on one end of the tank. Glines, with a similar net, walked on a similar set-up on the opposite side of the 15,000 gallon tank.

After several misses, Eyre managed to snag the first white-spotted bamboo shark, which became entangled in the net fighting for freedom. Eyre and Glines quickly dunked the netted shark in a water-filled gray gurney and extracted the finned one.

A team wheeled the shark toward the front door, passing piles of debris as workers tore down the remaining parts of the Gateway aquarium. Out front, the cart went into the truck where Eyre reached in, grabbed the shark and put it in the moving tank.

The sharks, most of whom are fed three times a week, skipped their last scheduled meal in preparation for the move, Glines said.

"We wanted them to have empty stomachs," she said. No one wanted a nervous predator to lose its lunch.

Eyre's approach to moving sharks is similar to taking off a bandage - get it over with quickly.

"When sharks are stressed, they shed urea, or pee, out of their skin," he explained. Faster moves equal less stress.

Most of the morning transfers involved the smaller, easier-to-manage sharks, most of which weigh about 20 pounds. The heaviest, a nurse shark, worried Glines.

"She is a tubby tubby," Glines said of the 60-pounder. "We don't call her Miss Piggy for nothing."

For the nurse shark, a crew of four lowered a blue nylon stretcher into the water, hoping the creature could be lured onto the contraption.

On the other side of the tank, aquarium staffer Paul Baxter wielded a long PVC pipe and tried to strategically poke the shark to encourage the beast toward the submerged stretcher.

After a few laps, someone managed to snag the shark in a net and force it onto the stretcher. Four people heaved the stretcher over their heads and handed it down to others who eased stretcher and shark into a gray bin.

Eyre offered a bit of advice for moving the feisty black-tipped shark: "Keep your hands out of his mouth."

glavine@sltrib.com