Shipping prices

musaabi

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I’m in the process of moving and wanted to get my fish shipped to me. I went into FedEx and it getting prices for over $200 for overnight shipping. Was curious for those of you who ship, how do you lower costs? Everything is in a 10 gallon currently so not a ton of stuff.

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Lost in the Sauce

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I’m in the process of moving and wanted to get my fish shipped to me. I went into FedEx and it getting prices for over $200 for overnight shipping. Was curious for those of you who ship, how do you lower costs? Everything is in a 10 gallon currently so not a ton of stuff.

4B60E29D-991D-4593-B3D1-085FBEA490B1.jpeg
Ship your aquatics online. Overnight shipping is expensive. The more pounds you add the more expensive. It's not uncommon for me to pay 60 to $75 to ship a mushroom across the country with less than 12 oz of water.

Depending on where you're moving, and the mode of transport, air pumps and a heater may be your best bet.
 
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musaabi

musaabi

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Ship your aquatics online. Overnight shipping is expensive. The more pounds you add the more expensive. It's not uncommon for me to pay 60 to $75 to ship a mushroom across the country with less than 12 oz of water.

Depending on where you're moving, and the mode of transport, air pumps and a heater may be your best bet.
I originally bought an air pump and a couple of small heaters. I wanted to put them in (2) 5 gallon buckets. It’s going to be about a 3 day trip.
 

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There's a service called "HOT SHOT" shipping, it's basically people for hire willing to make that drive as fast as humanly possible. But you figure gas wise you'd need prob 50 gallons, so that's 200 bucks in gas already. hmmmm...can you reach out to a "local" livestock shipper as see? LA has to have a ton.
 

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I moved from MI to FL and moved a lot of fish in 3 gallon buckets, I put the 3 gallon buckets in these 50 can cooler totes and they are able to zip up over the bucket.
I then threw in heat pack hand warmers.
I used D battery air pumps
and hanna thermoter that I drilled hole into lid for

My trip was 36 hours total loading and unloading.
 
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musaabi

musaabi

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So that's about 15 hours straight. I would be taking them with me.
I’m not making the trip in one shot otherwise I would have. Leaving weds and arriving Friday evening so about 3 day trip. I have a uhaul and will be towing my car. Wanted to stop in Monterey for some diving, red oaks Friday morning before continuing up to Portland.
 
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There's a service called "HOT SHOT" shipping, it's basically people for hire willing to make that drive as fast as humanly possible. But you figure gas wise you'd need prob 50 gallons, so that's 200 bucks in gas already. hmmmm...can you reach out to a "local" livestock shipper as see? LA has to have a ton.
My LFS said they can watch the fish for about $5 a day and then ship them out to me. Not sure if they would get a better rate for shipping. Makes me wonder how any of these shippers can send this stuff while still making money and charging a $40 shipping fee
 

Radu

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My LFS said they can watch the fish for about $5 a day and then ship them out to me. Not sure if they would get a better rate for shipping. Makes me wonder how any of these shippers can send this stuff while still making money and charging a $40 shipping fee
This might be a good resource: https://shipyouraquatics.com/
 

Lost in the Sauce

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My LFS said they can watch the fish for about $5 a day and then ship them out to me. Not sure if they would get a better rate for shipping. Makes me wonder how any of these shippers can send this stuff while still making money and charging a $40 shipping fee
Where in LA are you?

Big shippers get preferential rates based on quantity. The more packages they send out a year the lower their rates go.

Looking at the tank, you could set that entire tank up in your car in a cooler and have it going for a long time. Bring two jugs of water with you for water changes.
 

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My LFS said they can watch the fish for about $5 a day and then ship them out to me. Not sure if they would get a better rate for shipping. Makes me wonder how any of these shippers can send this stuff while still making money and charging a $40 shipping fee
My business did some direct to consumer shipping and we had a fedex account, we negotiated our rates ahead of time and generally were much cheaper than consumer rates.
 
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musaabi

musaabi

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I moved from MI to FL and moved a lot of fish in 3 gallon buckets, I put the 3 gallon buckets in these 50 can cooler totes and they are able to zip up over the bucket.
I then threw in heat pack hand warmers.
I used D battery air pumps
and hanna thermoter that I drilled hole into lid for

My trip was 36 hours total loading and unloading.

How long did i
Where in LA are you?

Big shippers get preferential rates based on quantity. The more packages they send out a year the lower their rates go.

Looking at the tank, you could set that entire tank up in your car in a cooler and have it going for a long time. Bring two jugs of water with you for water changes.
im in Long Beach. I was actually looking at getting a 30 Qt live bait box since it’s a cooler and has a battery air stone but can’t find any close by to me.
 
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musaabi

musaabi

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So I found a 10 gallon cooler on target. Gonna drill a hole through the top to get an airstone and heater the. Power via car outlet for the heater and airpump. I have some live rock from my old tank as well which should keep ammonia at bay and I’ll keep a 5 gallon salter water in case my ammonia alert goes off. Also have some prime worst case scenario. I’m more worried about the temp and aerating
 

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How long did i
Did your question get cut off? Also be careful with what liverock you put in cooler with fish, depending on the rock it can disintegrate into the water with all the moving around during transport. Like for one bucket I thought I was being smart putting purigen blocks in there for bio filter and it completely disintegrated and made the water completely cloudy. Now I only use sponge filters for this. I auctually just moved a bunch of fish this weekend from Tampa to Miami and had them in same setup I described earlier for about 24 hours loading and unloading.
 

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