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RE: Shipping fishes
Hi Barry,
First let me start by agreeing with everything you mentioned below to one
degree or another.
My advise regarding shipping Nothos was addressed to persons with
considerably less experience with Nothos than yourself. Rather than trying
to discourage the long distance shipping of these fish I actually intended
to *encourage* the shipment of eggs. My water is actually moderately soft
and that does make it a little bit harder to bring in Nothos from people
with very hard water. This being said, I have not experienced similar
problems with fish I have hatched from eggs. The fish do seem to do better
for me when they are hatched and raised the same water.
I just brought in a pair of very mature Nothos from upstate New York at
auction, and they are currently taking bbs, he will also eat frozen blood
worms and she will nibble at grindle worms. I have dedicated a 10 gallon
tank to them with Java moss for cover. Even though these fish were hand
delivered and in super condition, it is going to take significant effort to
get them through the next couple of weeks. To complicate matters it appears
that they had been eating primarily home brewed paste food.
Here in New Jersey the keeping of outdoor mosquito/daphnia ponds is frowned
upon. Although I already had the West Nile-like Virus last year my neighbor
actually built a screen to cover a bucket I was keeping outside for daphnia.
Despite the likelihood that I am not likely susceptible to it again, my
neighbors do not share my priorities or immunity. A truck came by shortly
after I was bitten and sprayed my neighborhood with malathion (sp?) and I
believe that is what finished off my remaining daphnia. I had just recovered
and I was taking something out of the trunk of my car, when I looked up and
got blasted with the insecticide. Ironic isn't it? My efforts to raise
daphnia indoors have so far been less than entirely successful as I do not
currently have the space or time to dedicate to them. This is why I am
using bbs and grindle worms to start Nothos I just received.
In the case I was commenting on, I was assuming that the fish were going to
be in transit at least several days if they do not get held by customs. I
assumed (for safeties sake) that it was likely that our Brazilian friend who
had not located Nothos at his LFS was probably not nearly as experienced
with them as you are. I also had no cause to believe that he raises either
daphnia or mosquitoes. And I do not know his level of sophistication
regarding water chemistry. I assumed that he could obtain bbs mail order,
if necessary, or even micro worms. I thought that given a little good advise
he could hatch and raise a healthy crop of "easy" Nothos such as GUE and he
would not have to deal with the risks, expense and possible disappointment
which may accompany transplanting adult Nothos. I further assumed that he
would need to breed the fish anyway in the future to keep them going. I
also thought that a weekly spawn for example would give our far off friend a
better chance to get the fish established where he lives. The only admitted
flaw in my logic was that not everybody who keeps fish wants to breed them.
I suppose it is possible that he just wanted the fish simply to enjoy in his
community tank. In that case I am over complimenting the matter.
Barry, I buy live Nothos and I sell live Nothos, if I were to say that I do
not believe that they can be successfully transplanted and shipped, I would
be defacto admitting to stupidity coming and going or at least hypocrisy.
(One or the other may be true, but I'd just never admit to it!) But the fact
remains, given the circumstances described above, I recommended shipping
eggs as a *better* alternative, not as the *only* one.
If you believe that shipping live fish to Brazil would be better than
shipping eggs, I would love to hear your reasoning. I have been wrong in the
past (according to my wife) and no doubt will be so again (also according to
my wife). If your preference is towards live shipping, I look forward to
reading your next posting and I will no doubt humbly defer to your better
judgment.
I do very much appreciate the time which you have taken to comment on my
prior post and yours is the best advise I have heard to date on getting
Nothos to start eating after they have been shipped. I believe that I might
even try daphnia again.
With regard to Notho-fade-away, I will be e-mailing you off list.
Best regards,
-RJ-
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-killietalk at aka_org [mailto:owner-killietalk at aka_org]On
Behalf Of Barry J. Cooper
Sent: Monday, April 02, 2001 12:03 PM
To: killietalk at aka_org
Subject: RE: Shipping fishes
RJ,
I have noticed a few of your postings regarding shipping and
transport of Nothos and their subsequent willingness to eat. I don't
think I can agree that shipping live Nothos (i.e. fish) is a
particular problem. When we collect in Africa the fish can be in bags
for up to 2 weeks (occasionally as long as 17 days in my own
experience). Certainly they get thin after such a long period. We
don't feed them while in bags in the field, but we do change water
frequently. It can indeed be tricky to get them to eat once they are
in tanks at home, but they usually can be enticed with live foods
such as mosquito larvae and daphnia, blackworms or other worms. I
have found that mosquito larvae and daphnia are the best food to get
them interested in food again. Once they are eating they quickly come
back into excellent condition.
As far as water conditions go, you should not experience trouble if
you are placing the fish into water that is relatively hard. If going
from hard to soft water you need to artificially harden the latter or
to very gradually acclimimatize the fish. Nothos in nature come from
water that can vary from low to high conductivity. They tolerate hard
water well and some, including myself, would tell you that they do
best in aquaria in moderately hard water. The only time I have had
trouble transferring Nothos was earlier this year when I set up my
new fishroom in Oregon, where our water is dead soft. Even with the
many postings that have been made to this list regarding the
"hard-to-soft" problem, I under-estimated just how slowly I needed to
do the acclimatization.
I think I recall you posting some time ago about what you referred to
as "Notho wasting disease". That seems similar to what you are
describing here. I would suggest that you consider other
possibilities. Wasting is a common consequence of many diseases,
including some bacterial and protozoal diseases. The inappetance
might be the result of the disease not the cause. I recommend, if you
have further incidences of such a problem, that you fix a few of the
(recently) dead fish in formaling (10%) and send them to someone to
examine them histologically. I can arrange this for you if you wish.
If you need to discuss it further, please contact me oof-list.
In summary, in my opinion Nothos can be shipped as fish as well as
other species, provided basic care is taken (bagged individually,
food withheld for one day before, clean water, etc.). I don't
recommend keeping fish in bags longer than necessary, but I doubt
that anyone does so deliberately. Usually fish arrive within 3-4 days
of shipping.
Barry
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