[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Mailing Fish



Susan said:

<<There is one additional "trick" to mailing fish that hasn't been mentioned.

You MUST be sure that the fish is cleaned out so it won't pollute the bag
with wastes. This is especially important if the pH of the water is over 7
where it can be toxic ammonia and not ammonium as is found at pH's under 7.
Not feeding the fish for at least 3-4 days, up to a week is better, goes a
long way to not having the fish swimming in a toxic soup upon arrival.

Recently I received a box of fish via USPS Priority. As SOON as I started to
open the styro I could smell ammonia. It was so bad I gagged. One fish was
dead, the other two gilled hard at water's surface due to the gill damage
they suffered from ammonia in their bag. They didn't live longer than 4 or 5>>

When I received my fish via priority mail a few months ago, I checked the water out of curiosity. I was mainly interested in hardness, to see if parameters matched, but I went ahead and checked pH and was quite surprised when it came up 7.8 or something like that with something like 60 ppm hardness. After coming up with a high pH reading, I decided to check for ammonia--and it was not readable on my scale (looked to be 0). I double checked, because I couldn't believe it. They were well packaged, 2 in one bag, and 3 in another, with maybe 2 quarts of water in each bag. The fish looked pretty healthy and <blunder> one even took a dive out of the net onto the carpet on the way into the tank. They're still doing well.

And, re: post office via ups shipments--I have found UPS (at least ground delivery, that I know of) is no more reliable these days than the post office. I think both services have deteriorated in quality and timeliness. When I sent off a shipment of plants today, I sent them priority mail and requested delivery confirmation. The woman at the counter said she thought shipments were more prompt with this small bit of insurance, as was suggested a day or so ago on the APD.

But, these other stories aren't giving me a whole lot of confidence in sending my fish off into the unknown. 

Sylvia