A week ago when the weather was great in Pittsburgh and the eastern seaboard in general for a day or two(70's daytime, high 40's nighttime), I shiped a box of gularis to North Carolina.(mailed monday, arrived wednesday 3/1/00) I just got the box back and saw the following temperature results.
I used a cardboard box containing a styrofoam box within an outer styrofoam box with the "keep warm" instructions outside the cardboard box on all sides, top and bottom, all three boxes tape sealed to prevent air leaks. . (before I say more, the fish did arrive alive and well).
I used an indoor/outdoor "radioshack" electronic thermometer to
record
the inner and outer styrofoam box max and min temperatures. On
the way to North
Carolina, the inside of the outer box dipped to 52.5 degrees
and the inner
box to 54.5 degrees as reported by the shipment recipient. That
was about 10 degrees warmer than the ambient temp in the nights of the
shipment.
On the way back (still said keep warm, live tropical fish on the
box) the min
temperatures were 41 degrees in the inner box and 33 degrees in
the outer
box. Neither direction had benefit of a heat pack which would
have only been helpful if the shipment was an overnight express mail rather than
2 to 3 day priority mail.
Yea US postal service-really paid attention to the instructions.
This
was again, about 10 degrees above ambient inside a good 2 inches
of
styrofoam. They were definately in ambient outdoor temp for more than
a mere hour or two. They must have used the back of an unheated truck or
maybe just
dragged the box behind the truck. Fortunately, the box was
empty coming
back.
Bill Shenefelt