Jump to content

My method for shipping fish


Stanbiller63

Recommended Posts

Hey all, 

          New member here.. I recently shipped my fishes over states. SoI thought to share  the method I used to ship this is very different from what I used to advise people. Hope you like it.

1. Obtain a sturdy box. I used to mess around with styrofoam lined boxes, but they're hard to get a hold of, not consistent in size when you do get them, and frankly annoying to store (large, unfoldable). Now my method is to get USPS priority mail shipping boxes. I go to the post office and ask politely and they give me a box for free

https://store.usps.c...SS_PriorityMail

I use the square-ish shaped box, not the rectangle.

2. Get some bags. I've stopped using breathable bags. They're fine, there's nothing wrong with them. It's just you can totally without meaning to overpack them with water. Not overpack, like, it's leaking. I mean overpack like, "It cost $15 to ship that package? Whaaa? Why? Oh, it's two pounds." It's just too easy to do. And also, those 2 mL thick shipping bags sold on aquabid.com in the shipping supplies section are like less than $4 for 50. You just can't beat that price, even using two bags like I do to eliminate the problem of edges (I always used to worry, with the breathable bags, that a fish would get stuck in a corner and get squished

3. Obtain heat packs if it is winter. Yes, I use heat packs for native fish. No, you don't always have to. No, you shouldn't auto-use a heat pack; if they get too hot they will cook and die. But heat packs do mean that I can ship all year round. (Not the week before Christmas! 2-3 day suddenly becomes a week and a half!) Yes, I have killed shipments of Elassoma gilberti with an unnecessary heat pack. But if the temperature range is 20-50 F, sure, stick a heat pack in there, it'll help them out. A lot of our native fish (especially the ones I breed) are from places like Florida. They don't like 40 degrees F.

4. Do not feed the fish before you ship. One of the very first google results for 'how to ship fish' tells you to put food into the bag so that they'll have something to munch on while they're in transit. *headdesk* That is the very worst possible advice you could give someone. In your aquarium, the ammonia that your fish excretes is converted to nitrite and then nitrate by beneficial bacteria or eaten by plants as ammonium. There are neither beneficial bacteria nor growing plants in your shipping bag, so any ammonia produced will simply stay as ammonia. And with such a small water volume, the tiny amount of ammonia produced builds up in concentration very quickly. The fish will be fine if it doesn't eat for a week. There is no fish I can think of that wouldn't survive that. 

Certain fish I don't starve. Small fish, like Elassoma and heterandria formosa (actually, the majority of fish I have at the moment), I don't bother to starve.

5. Tightly secure the top of the bag to be shipped. I used to say, "Tie it and put a rubber band on it" but now that I double bag using the 2 mL bags, I think the rubber band is overkill. *shrugs* Eh.

6. Clearly label the package. I do have something to say about this. Hand write your address, and don't write fragile on it. Clearly hand-writing your label is the best way to get it through shipping un-punted like a football. You know some people do that to packages marked fragile, you just know it. I read an article about people shipping force-meters through the mail to test whether the ones marked fragile were treated nicer. They were treated worse. Article: http://www.popularme...ckages?click=pp

7. Use enough tape. I use that clear packing tape they sell at Walmart and places. It's my go-to tape for everything, actually. Scotch tape is too tiny.

8. Secure the fish inside the box so they can't roll around. Easy to do when you're packing it with cellulose fiber.

9. Buy a tracking number and insurance. That two dollars is totally worth it. One time this person I sent fish to claimed that they never got them. I was like, "What do you mean you never got them? I shipped them to you." I ended up giving the person a full refund because I couldn't prove I had shipped the fish to them. So buy a tracking number, because that way you can't possibly get scammed

I have used the insurance and had a very good experience. Citizenshipper generally took 7 days to deliver something I paid 2-3 day shipping on.

Most important!

10. Obey the law. I was pretty annoying to my local wildlife people for a while there asking them lots of very, very specific questions about what it was legal to do. I also make sure when shipping plants that they're not a noxious species or banned in the state I'm shipping to.  If you can't do things legally, don't do them at all. But it turns out it's easy to sell fish and plants legally, at least for me here in North Carolina.

Hope you like

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for taking the time to do this, it is very thorough and must have taken some time to do! I found it quite interesting even though it is something I wouldn't be doing.

I have one query regarding 3. should that temperture range be 20-30 rather than 20-50 as you say they don't like 40???

Would you mind filling in the country on your profile so people can tell at a glance that you are USA based. It is clear by the end of the article but I wasn't sure whether you were Australia or USA as you both have STATES and use $ !

Simon

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think he's right in saying 20-50. As the fish are usually unhappy with 40 degrees F, if the temperature is 50 and below, it is advisable to use a heatpack. Farenheight, by the way, not celsius. So he's pretty much saying if they're going to be too cold, use a heatpack. I totally over-explained that, but whatever ? 

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Join Our Community!

    Register today, ask questions and share your shrimp and fish tank experiences with us!

  • Must Read SKF Articles

  • Posts

    • beanbag
      Update to say that after a few gravel vacs, front wall scrub, moss / floating plant trim, that the condition seems to have improved.  My current theory is that it is due to waste / debris management, where "stuff" like that brown mulm accumulates in the substrate and behind the HMF filters.  Maybe some tanks can somehow deal with it, but mine can't.  Also another experienced shrimper suggested that maybe those "shell bugs" don't just live on the shrimps but also in this debris.  Maybe this is the reason some tanks fail due to "old tank syndrome" where all they need is a good gravel vac? Also, I am guessing that plant trim helps too because now more of the nutrients and light go into growing algae instead of more plants? Well anyway for this tank I will try weekly water change and monthly gravel vac / plant trim.  For my next tank, I'm thinking of something like an under-gravel system where this mulm can fall down and I vac it out.
    • sdlTBfanUK
      Good to have an update and good to hear you are getting shrimplets, so hopefully your colony will continue and you may not get to the point where you have to cull some to stop over population. These type of shrimp only live 12 - 18 months so the adult deaths may be natural? If you have the time I would do weekly 25% water changes, adding the new water via a drip system and do some vacuuming clean of the substrate each week, even if only a different bit each week! See if that helps in a few months and if it does then stick with that regime? It should help reduce any build-ups that may be occuring!
    • beanbag
      Hello again, much belated update: The tank still has "cycles" of 1-2 month "good streaks" where everybody seems to be doing well, and then a bad streak where the short antenna problem shows up again, and a shrimp dies once every few days.  I am not sure what causes things to go bad, but usually over the course of a few days I will start to see more shrimp quietly standing on the HMF filter, and so I know something is wrong.  Since I am not "doing anything" besides the regular 1-2 week water changes, I just assume that something bad is building up.  Here's a list of things that I've tried that are supposed to be "can't hurt" but didn't prevent the problem either: Dose every other day with Shrimp Fit (very small dose, and the shrimp seem to like it) Sotching Oxydator Seachem Purigen to keep the nitrates lower Keeping the pH below 5.5 with peat Things that I don't do often, so could possibly "reset" the tank back to a good streak, are gravel vac and plant trim, so maybe time to try those again. One other problem I used to have was that sometimes a shrimp would suddenly stop eating with a full or partially full digestive tract that doesn't clear out, and then the shrimp will die within a few days.  I suspected it was one of the foods in my rotation - Shrimp Nature Infection, which contains a bunch of herbal plant things.  I've had this in my food rotation for a few years now and generally didn't seem to cause problems, but I removed it from the rotation anyway.  I don't have a lot of adult Golden Bees at this point so I can't really tell if it worked or not. Overall the tank is not too bad - during the good streaks occasionally a shrimp will get berried and hatch babies with a 33-50% survival rate.  So while there are fewer adults now, there are also a bunch of babies roaming around.  I guess this tank will stagger on, but I really do need to take the time to start up a new tank.  (or figure out the problem)
    • jayc
      If that is the offspring, then the parents are unlikely to be PRL. I tend to agree with you. There are very few PRLs in Australia. And any that claim to be needs to show proof. PRL genes have to start as PRL. CRS that breed true after x generations doesn't turn it into a PRL. Neither can a Taiwan bee shrimp turn into a PRL despite how ever many generations. I've never seen a PRL with that sort of red colour. I have on Red Wines and Red Shadows - Taiwan bee shrimps. So somewhere down the line one of your shrimp might have been mixed with Taiwan bees and is no longer PRL. It just tanks one shrimp to mess up the genes of a whole colony. 
    • sdlTBfanUK
      Sorry, missed this one somehow! The PRL look fantastic and the odd ones look part PRL and part Red wine/Red shadow in the colour. They are still very beautiful but ideally should be seperated to help keep the PRL clean if you can do that.  Nice clear photos!
×
×
  • Create New...