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RE: Heat is culprit in shipment fatality?



Another one that hung up for no reason I can determine.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Charley Bay <Charleyb at Cytomation_com>
To: "'Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com'" <Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com>
Subject: RE: Heat is culprit in shipment fatality?
Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2001 08:45:45 -0600 

> > Bob wrote: 
> > <snip, fish shipment mortality, heat is the cause?>
>
> Scott responded:
> <snip, foul smell from bag, fish didn't last long>
> On the other hand, it's pretty amazing what heat can do in a small
> time.  I suspect that it would speed up some biochemical processes,
> including those bacterial activities we call rotting. How fast do fish
> putrefy?  Can anyone else address this issue?

I'm sure heat accelerates the process about as
fast as it works on house guests, which is (far) less
than 48 hours.  ;-))

I've been very successful shipping fish with no loss, 
but that's based on careful study of the weather
at origin, destination, and at distribution hub
points along the way (avoid heat and cold extremes).  
This information is easy to get online (I typically
use US Postal Service 2nd Day Air because it's 
cheap).  Unfortunately, this is probably very unrealistic 
for a commercial environment... it's too much work, 
and you may cut your "available" ship time by 
50-75% or more.  Further, many buyers may not be 
willing to wait.

However, if you are the buyer, you might think
about timing your order with the weather.

I vote for heat as the culprit, and you only need
fifteen minutes at 95F to get the process going. ;-(
They load the vans really fast, but 10 years ago
it was pretty common for the vans to get over 100F
on hot summer days (I don't know about today.)

Would cold packs be too cold?  They use those
for live lobsters, but people eat those at the other 
end (but they arrive alive for me and live more than 
a week until I decide I want my bathtub back.)

--charley