Transporting fish

[Maxy]

I have a few offers on destocking my tank and was wondering how to ship the fish in question. They are small fish. Do I need to put O2 in the bags? How do I regulate the temp in transit? They are going from Gore to Auckland

[ormali]

We brought our fishes to Welly from Christchurch by car. Took us about nine and a half hours to get here, about an hour after that before we had the tank set up for the fishes.

We put as few fish as possible in each bag (they had all come from the same tank) half filled with water from the tank. We filled the other half with air from our pump. For the fishes that have labyrinth (sp) organs (ie Bettas, cory cats etc) we reduced the water and increased the air.

We packed them in a polystyrene chilly bin, all the bags togther with a towel around the outside to buffer them.

They all arrived fine - the water had only lost about three or four degrees and my understanding is that tropical fish will handle this slow decrease in temperature well, as long as they are brought back up just as gradually. Our cory cat is very temperature sensitive - he goes quiet and sulks if the tank gets too cold - and he came through it all fine.

The other way, of course, is to look for a company that specialises in shipping tropical fish. I know there is a company like that in CHristchurch (Polarcold or something similar?). Have a look in the yellow pages.

Third way is to get one of those small poly chilly bins, get a heat pack (I've heard of wheat bags working well for this as long as they are well wrapped and not heated too hot) and send em by courier.

Hope this helps

[Maxy]

Thanks ormali, great advice and exactly what I was looking for. Have a couple of ploy boxes here that I've bought fish home in and now I'm pleased I didnt throw them out. They will have to be courierd to Auckland so I guess I just plaster the outside of the box: LIVE FISH, HANDLE WITH CARE etc? I know they can be rough. Wheat bag will do the trick just fine. Thanks