How Long will Fish Survive Shipping

[taricha]

That will be 96+ hours in a bag... is there any chance of survivors in this? I have to imagine all of the O2 will be used up and lower temperatures are going to kill the fish.

my experience is the below...

I would think it would highly depend on the type of fish and the packaging more than anything. But I do think you might be surprised.

I once had a shipment from a seller go out on a Thu evening. The shipping company failed to get it done Fri, closed for the weekend, then didn't get it to me until Mon. Foxface was well decomposed - didn't even come close to making it. Small goby was still alive and acclimated well.
So there's a decent chance - better chance if the fish are small relative to the water/air in the bag. Dr. Reef's comments about metabolism also indicate he's thinking about the right things to address those effects.

 

[crabgrass]

Update:

Everything survived the journey, although stressed. Box was still warm, which was good.

I skipped the temp acclimation, but did a slow manual salinity/temp acclimation over the course of an hour. (I had a batch of heated low salinity ready, and then would remove a cup or two of that and add tank water until it matched).

- Foxface - looked like it was on deaths door when it arrived, but appears way better. It is getting bosses around by a Yellow Eyed Kole, but doesn’t seem to give a crap

- Melanurus Wrasse - looked good at the start, but faded a bit. I assume stress. It is now buried in sand.

- Goby - looked perfect.


Will observe over next few days.

 

[Dr. Reef]

Update:

Everything survived the journey, although stressed. Box was still warm, which was good.

I skipped the temp acclimation, but did a slow manual salinity/temp acclimation over the course of an hour. (I had a batch of heated low salinity ready, and then would remove a cup or two of that and add tank water until it matched).

- Foxface - looked like it was on deaths door when it arrived, but appears way better. It is getting bosses around by a Yellow Eyed Kole, but doesn’t seem to give a crap

- Melanurus Wrasse - looked good at the start, but faded a bit. I assume stress. It is now buried in sand.

- Goby - looked perfect.


Will observe over next few days.

Keep an eye on the livestock, hopefully everyone will come through, for some unfortunate reason if something doesnt make it let us know, we will gurantee the livestock for 14 days from today.

 

[Brian1f1]

Ordered from Dr Reef, and was shipped out last Night (Thursday). I received a notification from UPS that the flight was delayed and the package will come Monday. That will be 96+ hours in a bag... is there any chance of survivors in this? I have to imagine all of the O2 will be used up and lower temperatures are going to kill the fish.

This is in no way a knock on Dr Reef (only had success with them).

They really shouldn’t ship on Thursdays anymore. It’s been a bad practice for years now and they have to know it…

 

[Brian1f1]

Call UPS and ask them if you can pick up at customer center. They are usually open Saturday

UPS has a new(ish?) and ironclad policy that they must attempt at least one delivery to the door before you can pick up now. I just went through this with a delayed coral shipment that had to sit at the facility overnight due to this utterly asinine policy.

 

[Dr. Reef]

They really shouldn’t ship on Thursdays anymore. It’s been a bad practice for years now and they have to know it…

UPS has a new(ish?) and ironclad policy that they must attempt at least one delivery to the door before you can pick up now. I just went through this with a delayed coral shipment that had to sit at the facility overnight due to this utterly asinine policy.

We ship anywhere from 75 to 100 orders daily. We been in business officially for 5 years and 10+ yrs prior as basement seller.
at 75 order per Thursday that's 3600 order per year. 18000 order in last 5 years. I can only see about 10 order there were actually delayed from Friday delivery to Saturday.
We know our business and we also have a great relationship with UPS.
As this situation itself proves my point. NO ONE told ups to change it to Saturday delivery. We didn't call ups nor did the customer but we have a ups preferred team that monitors all our shipments due to the nature of our account.
We are registered as a live Animal delivery account (most others are just shipping accounts). All shipments are insured thus ups does not want to lose money on losses and refund shipping costs so they make sure these shipments make it in best possible time.
The experience you are explaining about 1 attempted delivery before pickup etc applies on retailers that just register as normal shipping accounts.
At that ratio I don't understand how that's a bad practice. It's not even half a percent.
Also why do you think vendors like us ship on Thursdays. You wanna know why? Because customers ask for it.
People even ask for Saturday delivery which is worse because I can't pull strings and make Sunday delivery happen. Atleast on Friday if there is a delay I can make Saturday delivery happen.

I can show you instances where ups managers met our clients after hours and dug the boxes out of their ups trailers and handed them to my clients.
When you do volume like ours, the day we don't ship, next day ups rep comes to say hi to us. Not because he wants to say hi. Because he wants to make sure we didn't move our business to fedex.

 

[crabgrass]

We ship anywhere from 75 to 100 orders daily. We been in business officially for 5 years and 10+ yrs prior as basement seller.
at 75 order per Thursday that's 3600 order per year. 18000 order in last 5 years. I can only see about 10 order there were actually delayed from Friday delivery to Saturday.
We know our business and we also have a great relationship with UPS.
As this situation itself proves my point. NO ONE told ups to change it to Saturday delivery. We didn't call ups nor did the customer but we have a ups preferred team that monitors all our shipments due to the nature of our account.
We are registered as a live Animal delivery account (most others are just shipping accounts). All shipments are insured thus ups does not want to lose money on losses and refund shipping costs so they make sure these shipments make it in best possible time.
The experience you are explaining about 1 attempted delivery before pickup etc applies on retailers that just register as normal shipping accounts.
At that ratio I don't understand how that's a bad practice. It's not even half a percent.
Also why do you think vendors like us ship on Thursdays. You wanna know why? Because customers ask for it.
People even ask for Saturday delivery which is worse because I can't pull strings and make Sunday delivery happen. Atleast on Friday if there is a delay I can make Saturday delivery happen.

I can show you instances where ups managers met our clients after hours and dug the boxes out of their ups trailers and handed them to my clients.
When you do volume like ours, the day we don't ship, next day ups rep comes to say hi to us. Not because he wants to say hi. Because he wants to make sure we didn't move our business to fedex.

As the customer on this case, the process was seamless. I should have not named DrReef earlier (although made it clear it wasn’t his fault). I literally sent an email to him and 30 mins later we both saw it was changed to Saturday delivery before anyone did anything.

Anyway, his care pre-sale and handling through the process has been amazing.

 

[Dr. Reef]

Thank you. I am glad all is working out well.
Let me know if there is anything else I can do.

 

[crabgrass]

Overnight update:

Fish (at least the Wrasse and Foxface) survived the night. Haven’t seen the goby since it went into the tank, but it was in the best shape before it went in.

- Wrasse hid for first 60 minutes and then came out and ate up a storm. Slept overnight in the sand and re-emerged about an hour after lights went on.

- Foxface got bossed around by my Yellow eyed Kole. I was a little worried as it didn’t eat yesterday, but is eating fine today. The Tang vs Foxface aggression is cooling down (Foxface didn’t really give a crap, just put the peacekeeping spikes up )

- Goby is MIA. My assumption right now is it’s burried in the sand somewhere

On the plus side, my two tangs (Kole and a Juvilie yellow) NEVER ate Nori no matter how I presented it in the tank. Enter Foxface and now they are going to town.

 

[Dr. Reef]

Overnight update:

Fish (at least the Wrasse and Foxface) survived the night. Haven’t seen the goby since it went into the tank, but it was in the best shape before it went in.

- Wrasse hid for first 60 minutes and then came out and ate up a storm. Slept overnight in the sand and re-emerged about an hour after lights went on.

- Foxface got bossed around by my Yellow eyed Kole. I was a little worried as it didn’t eat yesterday, but is eating fine today. The Tang vs Foxface aggression is cooling down (Foxface didn’t really give a crap, just put the peacekeeping spikes up )

- Goby is MIA. My assumption right now is it’s burried in the sand somewhere

On the plus side, my two tangs (Kole and a Juvilie yellow) NEVER ate Nori no matter how I presented it in the tank. Enter Foxface and now they are going to town.

Hi
if you dont see the goby in a few days let us know and we will take care of you.

 

[areefer01]

We ship anywhere from 75 to 100 orders daily. We been in business officially for 5 years and 10+ yrs prior as basement seller.
at 75 order per Thursday that's 3600 order per year. 18000 order in last 5 years. I can only see about 10 order there were actually delayed from Friday delivery to Saturday.
We know our business and we also have a great relationship with UPS.
As this situation itself proves my point. NO ONE told ups to change it to Saturday delivery. We didn't call ups nor did the customer but we have a ups preferred team that monitors all our shipments due to the nature of our account.
We are registered as a live Animal delivery account (most others are just shipping accounts). All shipments are insured thus ups does not want to lose money on losses and refund shipping costs so they make sure these shipments make it in best possible time.
The experience you are explaining about 1 attempted delivery before pickup etc applies on retailers that just register as normal shipping accounts.
At that ratio I don't understand how that's a bad practice. It's not even half a percent.
Also why do you think vendors like us ship on Thursdays. You wanna know why? Because customers ask for it.
People even ask for Saturday delivery which is worse because I can't pull strings and make Sunday delivery happen. Atleast on Friday if there is a delay I can make Saturday delivery happen.

I can show you instances where ups managers met our clients after hours and dug the boxes out of their ups trailers and handed them to my clients.
When you do volume like ours, the day we don't ship, next day ups rep comes to say hi to us. Not because he wants to say hi. Because he wants to make sure we didn't move our business to fedex.

You shouldn't take it personally if people post about not shipping on Thursdays. There are plenty of both small and large businesses who follow that practice. You did your part by packaging but you still have no control on the transportation layer or Mother Nature. Oddest reply.

I mean I don't recommend fellow hobbyist cleaning a return pump or similar life support equipment on Thursday or Fridays (unless one has a spare on hand). You just never know what could or may happen and that replacement may not be readily available...

 

[mues]

Overnight update:

Fish (at least the Wrasse and Foxface) survived the night. Haven’t seen the goby since it went into the tank, but it was in the best shape before it went in.

- Wrasse hid for first 60 minutes and then came out and ate up a storm. Slept overnight in the sand and re-emerged about an hour after lights went on.

- Foxface got bossed around by my Yellow eyed Kole. I was a little worried as it didn’t eat yesterday, but is eating fine today. The Tang vs Foxface aggression is cooling down (Foxface didn’t really give a crap, just put the peacekeeping spikes up )

- Goby is MIA. My assumption right now is it’s burried in the sand somewhere

On the plus side, my two tangs (Kole and a Juvilie yellow) NEVER ate Nori no matter how I presented it in the tank. Enter Foxface and now they are going to town.

just introduced a foxface to my tank last week with two tangs in it (kole and hippo) - they will learn quickly not to mess with him.

Glad everything seems to be good

 

[MnFish1]

Overnight update:

Fish (at least the Wrasse and Foxface) survived the night. Haven’t seen the goby since it went into the tank, but it was in the best shape before it went in.

- Wrasse hid for first 60 minutes and then came out and ate up a storm. Slept overnight in the sand and re-emerged about an hour after lights went on.

- Foxface got bossed around by my Yellow eyed Kole. I was a little worried as it didn’t eat yesterday, but is eating fine today. The Tang vs Foxface aggression is cooling down (Foxface didn’t really give a crap, just put the peacekeeping spikes up )

- Goby is MIA. My assumption right now is it’s burried in the sand somewhere

On the plus side, my two tangs (Kole and a Juvilie yellow) NEVER ate Nori no matter how I presented it in the tank. Enter Foxface and now they are going to town.

AGREE my tangs would not eat nori.

 

[Flame2hawk]

I only schedule shipments to arrive on tue, Wed or Thurs. that’s it never Friday.

 

[crabgrass]

AGREE my tangs would not eat nori.

It was like a light switch. Insert foxface, and now Nori is a menu option. Pretty amazing

 

[Dr. Reef]

It was like a light switch. Insert foxface, and now Nori is a menu option. Pretty amazing

in our qt tanks we do not feed nori. it fowls up the water and discolors the water due to many chemicals in the tank for treatment.. so our fish are not used to nori or algae.

 

[crabgrass]

Update:

All fish are accounted for. The Goby and its shrimp have been reunited and living in cave/sand.

Tensions between the Kole and Foxface factions are beginning to decrease and they are starting to normalize diplomatic relations.

 

[Dr. Reef]

Very good. Always happy to hear good stories like that.
Anything we can do, feel free to contact us
Thank you

 

[vetteguy53081]

My personal - two days. My LFS was 3 days with 3 dead of 94 fish

 

[Dr. Reef]

Couple years back Thanksgiving we shipped a large order to a client. He's got a coral store but sell our qted fish to local hobbyist. Shipment contained over 60 to 70 fish and many inverts.
We shipped on Monday by southwest cargo. They messed up and bumped it. So it didn't leave till Tuesday and Wednesday when it got to its destination, Southwest cargo facility was closed. Also closed next day for Thanksgiving. Resume operations Friday.
By the time client got the fish it was Friday afternoon.
All the stock was alive and 0 casualties. 5 days in bags.

Couple of times due to weather and hurricanes we suffered delays upto 3 days and fish made it alive.