Guess the ammonia in shipping bags

[taricha]

I recently got an order from ReefCleaners for a bunch of different herbivores. All arrived healthy, and quickly became active and assumed normal behavior in my tank.

tiny micro ceriths < 1/2" long
more normal sized cerith snails
four medium sized turbo snails
some red mithrax crabs
some green emerald crabs
some ping-pong ball sized pincushion urchins
a larger racquetball sized rock boring urchin

The inverts went in the bag at ~2pm one day, were shipped next-day-air and I put them in my system at ~6pm the next day, so ~28 hours in the bags. (They arrived much earlier, but that's when I had time to pick them up etc.)
I sampled all the shipping water for total ammonia and pH.

Guess the range of total ammonia in the shipping water in the highest ammonia bags.

a) 0-1 ppm
b) 1-3 ppm
c) 3-10 ppm
d) 10-30 ppm
e) 30-100 ppm

Again, all inverts adjusted fine and are now happy in my display. No losses at all.

 

[ScubaFish802]

That must be why I mainly get my inverts from them in just moist paper towels (no water) - If I had to guess purely off how those towels smell.. either d or e lol

 

[Garf]

I recently got an order from ReefCleaners for a bunch of different herbivores. All arrived healthy, and quickly became active and assumed normal behavior in my tank.

tiny micro ceriths < 1/2 long
more normal sized cerith snails
four medium sized turbo snails
some red mithrax crabs
some green emerald crabs
some ping-pong ball sized pincushion urchins
a larger racquetball sized rock boring urchin

The inverts went in the bag at ~2pm one day, were shipped next-day-air and I put them in my system at ~6pm the next day, so ~28 hours in the bags. (They arrived much earlier, but that's when I had time to pick them up etc.)
I sampled all the shipping water for total ammonia and pH.

Guess the range of total ammonia in the shipping water in the highest ammonia bags.

a) 0-1 ppm
b) 1-3 ppm
c) 3-10 ppm
d) 10-30 ppm
e) 30-100 ppm

Again, all inverts adjusted fine and are now happy in my display. No losses at all.

I’ll go 3 to 10ppm, really low pH also.

 

[dwest]

E

 

[taricha]

That must be why I mainly get my inverts from them in just moist paper towels (no water) - If I had to guess purely off how those towels smell.. either d or e lol

I never noticed a smell, but they do ship in a particular way. Several of the inverts had their bag containing mostly air very little water and a paper towel.

 

[taricha]

Ok here you go:

The amount of ammonia was highly variable - these inverts shipping bags end up with very different amounts of ammonia under these conditions.

Mini ceriths, big ceriths, and the racquetball sized rock urchins had:
a) 0 - 1 ppm total ammonia

The crabs and ping-pong ball sized pincushion urchins bags had:
b) 1-3 ppm total ammonia

The turbos water, however blew up the test. Off the charts and I had to do 1/2 and 1/4 dilutions (2nd pic) to get an estimate.

Not to be too precise here - Let's call turbo bag 1 on the left maybe 15-25 ppm, and Turbo bag 2 on the right around 10-15 ppm.

so two bags of small turbos, 2 snails in each bag were:
d) 10-30 ppm

(I sanity checked these with some NH3 films, so no API griping allowed.)

the pH in these sample bags was around 7.6-7.8 for the lowest ammonia values, 7.5-7.6 for the medium ammonia values and 7.4-7.5 for the high ammonia Turbo bags.

The bags were not warm, essentially room temp 72, so this puts the Free ammonia - NH3 in the ballpark of 0.1 to 0.3 ppm NH3 in the turbo bags.

Don't paint with too broad brush here. Some animals will generate and survive lots of ammonia short term. Others generate very little. Some might be more sensitive. Also, they did not sit at these ammonia levels for a whole day - the ammonia climbed from zero to this level gradually over ~28 hours.

 

[Dan_P]

Ok here you go:

The amount of ammonia was highly variable - these inverts shipping bags end up with very different amounts of ammonia under these conditions.

Mini ceriths, big ceriths, and the racquetball sized rock urchins had:
a) 0 - 1 ppm total ammonia

The crabs and ping-pong ball sized pincushion urchins bags had:
b) 1-3 ppm total ammonia

The turbos water, however blew up the test. Off the charts and I had to do 1/2 and 1/4 dilutions (2nd pic) to get an estimate.

Not to be too precise here - Let's call turbo bag 1 on the left maybe 15-25 ppm, and Turbo bag 2 on the right around 10-15 ppm.

so two bags of small turbos, 2 snails in each bag were:
d) 10-30 ppm

(I sanity checked these with some NH3 films, so no API griping allowed.)

the pH in these sample bags was around 7.6-7.8 for the lowest ammonia values, 7.5-7.6 for the medium ammonia values and 7.4-7.5 for the high ammonia Turbo bags.

The bags were not warm, essentially room temp 72, so this puts the Free ammonia - NH3 in the ballpark of 0.1 to 0.3 ppm NH3 in the turbo bags.

Don't paint with too broad brush here. Some animals will generate and survive lots of ammonia short term. Others generate very little. Some might be more sensitive. Also, they did not sit at these ammonia levels for a whole day - the ammonia climbed from zero to this level gradually over ~28 hours.

Maybe the bags contained Prime and it detoxified the free ammonia

 

[Derrick0580]

I’ve only ordered from them one time. 3/4 of the creatures I ordered were doa and it wasn’t too hot or cold outside. I will say a refund was given no questions asked but highly doubt I will try again.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Maybe the bags contained Prime and it detoxified the free ammonia

lol

 

[taricha]

Maybe the bags contained Prime and it detoxified the free ammonia

You knew I was going to ask them that....

Me:
"Hey. Thanks for this. Everything looked great and acclimated well and happily in my tank.
I wanted to ask a quick question.
Have you guys found a need to use any of the claimed 'ammonia neutralizing' products in your shipping bags? or do your packing and shipping techniques do a good enough job?"

ReefCleaners:
"Glad to hear it!

We do not use ammonia neutralizing products in shipping, they don't seem to help."

 

[MnFish1]

I recently got an order from ReefCleaners for a bunch of different herbivores. All arrived healthy, and quickly became active and assumed normal behavior in my tank.

tiny micro ceriths < 1/2" long
more normal sized cerith snails
four medium sized turbo snails
some red mithrax crabs
some green emerald crabs
some ping-pong ball sized pincushion urchins
a larger racquetball sized rock boring urchin

The inverts went in the bag at ~2pm one day, were shipped next-day-air and I put them in my system at ~6pm the next day, so ~28 hours in the bags. (They arrived much earlier, but that's when I had time to pick them up etc.)
I sampled all the shipping water for total ammonia and pH.

Guess the range of total ammonia in the shipping water in the highest ammonia bags.

a) 0-1 ppm
b) 1-3 ppm
c) 3-10 ppm
d) 10-30 ppm
e) 30-100 ppm

Again, all inverts adjusted fine and are now happy in my display. No losses at all.

As you of course know - toxicity depends on temperature, salinity, and pH. Second - Some types of snails - who live in mud holes - that nearly dry out on low tide - can survive extremely high ammonia levels. When you ask a question - its helpful to say (rather than 'some emerald crabs' - xxx emerald crabs in 50cc water or 200 cc water.. The question the way it's written suggests that almost any answer could be correct - but - since you asked - I would day the ammonia (total ) unguessable. So my guess is - it's an unanswerable question - perhaps should be posted to tiktok?

 

[MnFish1]

BTW - answered before you posted results. As suggested - there was no way to answer - and the fact that (as of the post) - they all survived and were fine - reinforce the fact that snails can survive various ammonia conditions - also note that the pH in nearly all of the bags was extremely low - which would exponentially lower the toxic free ammonia present in the bags - I think this is common knowledge. Question - why did you not use a Seneye?

 

[Dan_P]

We do not use ammonia neutralizing products in shipping, they don't seem to help."

 

[happyhourhero]

Great place to order cuc from. They do what they do pretty well. I had one doa shrimp out of a 16 bag order. Some of the snails are quite small but I like adding oddball things to my tank.

 

[MnFish1]

the pH of (I didn't memorize them) - of your shipping bags would cause a very low (non-toxic) free ammonia level. Thats using a simple mathematical calculator. And - as above - the ammonia tolerance of snails is far different from anything else - The information is important - the pH matters for Ammonia toxicity - the ammonia tolerance of snails etc (as you tested with your ammonia prime tests) - is much higher than fish or inverts OR - will you next week be ordering 6 juvenile emperor angels in different bags..... I have heard from Multiple vendors - that they use ammonia detoxifiers with fish. whether your snail vendor did or didn't doesn't mean anything For Dan P )

 

[MnFish1]

PS - it would not be expected that with snails that it would help. That does not indict ammonia removing products in general. Next week - perhaps the experiment would be ordering 6 peppermint angels - and have 3 with no chemicals - and the other 3 identically treated - except with a 1 day shipping delay (plus an anti-ammonia ingredient)

 

[MnFish1]

If some posts of mine were repeated - apologies. on my browser - multiple posts are not there - then when one responds they are there behind. (Safari Beta)

 

[taricha]

For those curious, Liveaquaria / Diver's Den confirmed by email that they do not use any ammonia neutralizer product in their shipping bags (though they sell their own liveaquaria brand "ammonia remover").

"Thank you for your email. In general, ammonia neutralizers are not used as it would be very difficult to add the proper dosage when the amount of water used in shipping is usually a small amount."

They are rather particular about the other measures they take:
"Once the animals in your order have been selected for shipment, they're carefully placed in new freshwater or saltwater of the proper pH and specific gravity inside multiple poly bags with thick liners to limit the chances of punctures or leaks. The bags are then filled with pure oxygen and sealed with a special aluminum fastener for an air and watertight seal. From there the bags are placed in special insulated coolers to maintain a stable temperature during the transit, and warmers or ice packs are used to compensate for extreme temperatures depending on the season. The cooler is placed in a corrugated cardboard box for proper identification of the contents, and then the package is shipped Priority Overnight to arrive at your door the following day"

As mentioned earlier, if somebody did know a vendor shipped with ammonia neutralizers in the shipping bags, it would be interesting to offer to pay them a few extra $ to leave it out of half the shipment.
The sample size would be too small to conclude anything on just one order, but at least it would bypass the ethical issues (from my perspective) of subjecting the livestock to ammonia unnecessarily - since the ammonia would be unavoidable regardless.