The Puffer Forum

I'm going home for the summer and I'm taking my fish back with me because i don't trust people will take as good of care of them as me. i was told to get a cooler, leave it out so it gets to room temp, put the fish in little baggies with the tank water and then into the cooler so they stay warm over the 5 hour adventure. is this the correct thing to do?

Sounds good to me. I just moved my fish home, but it was only an hour and a half, and did something similar. I also put my filter media and decors in bags with tank water, so the bacteria would stay alive.

I 5 hour venture is pretty long though. Any chance your lfs will put pure O2 in the bags for you?

i could ask. i was thinking about that too because 5 hours without fresh air would be a bitch. if i left the tops of the bags open, could that help? or would it be better to try and put some air in there someway. hopefully with their help

If the bags are open they could tip over and spill.
Maybe a big bucket for the fish with a batery powered air pump.

Hey

I don't mean to be argumentative(which is the classic statement before one is argumentative lol) but if they aren't very delicate than I don't think that pure O2 is necessary , its only five hours and if the bags are sealed with 75% air and 25% water they should be just fine unless they are really delicate , i have had fish shipped to me plenty of times and only the more delicate species needed pure oxygen , and we are talking about 24 hours at least for the shipping. so check up on the species requirements first. one thing to remember is to not feed them the day before so that they don't void all over the bags from stress( which will happen anyway but there will be less to void)

When I get fish shipments in at work we get the stock sent in breathable bags which we give out in the case of people moving. Ask your LFS if they have any breathable bags to spare.

Or if you have room for a bucket behind your seat of you vehicle get 2 5 gallon buckets (with lids) and cut a small circle through the top of the lid so you can put an airstone (from a battery airpump) in to circulate the water within.

I have used both methods for transporting fish and both work with success.

My only worry with adding air stones is that ammonia is dramatically more toxic at high pH, and sudden aeration will jump the pH. I suppose not quite as much of a concern on a comparatively short drive.

Never thought of that LL. But IME the trips have been from about 6 hours. Time from catching tropicals from my pond, then 4 hr drive and to a friend for a 2 hr packing process (putting them in breathable bags and boxed) which is then to be send to my house on the mainland US. So IME it works. It would definatly depend on how delecate the species are.

Hey Good call on the breather bags tihsho.

Some people do have trouble using them, and one thing to remember is that never pack the bags next to each other there must be some sort of separation or else air cant transfer through the membrane, you could pack them in the Breather bags and then wrap the bags in newspaper and that would be great. cool thing about these bags is you leave almost no air in the bag so that if the bags move the fish aren't disturbed in there bubble of water. also you never run out of air.

Yeah I find them very handy and less stressful for the fish. If you don'y have a cooler yet see if your LFS has any spare styro boxes from their shipments, most LFSs are glad to get rid of them unless they constantly sell large species.

Are you moving puffs?

yeah, im moving them on sunday.

I asked that as I have heard that they will bite through breathable bags.

if you have to ship or move anything having the ph lower is much better to move fish. ill go into more detail on lisas statement to explain why.

ammonia toxicity is ten times greater between each ph number. so if your fish is in 1ppm ammonia in a bag at 5ph. and you raise the ph to 6 in that bag. you just made the ammonia ten times more toxic.

thats why you dont use airstones etc in the bag.

to do this the best. just bag the fish in any type of bag. and put them in an insulated container. drive them to their new home, and then pour them and their water into a container. slowly add new water to the dirty bag water and scoop out the dirty bag water after each addition of clean water

(example. you put a cup of clean water in twice, then scoop out one cup or two and discard it. then add more new water and repeat)

and discard it. you do this because the fish have as much ammonia in their body as is in the water, so putting them in clean water right away is just as deadly. as you are slowly changing the water to cleaner water, the fish can remove the ammonia built up iside it without getting more stressed. keep the ph very close to what was in the bag. as well. once you have totally changed out the water a few times then you can slowly raise the ph to the desired level and put the fish back into their tanks.

just treat them like fish you got new from your fish store and go slow.
youll be fine.
breather bags run a few risks as well, but if you want to move puffers using them, lay the bags on their sides not straight up and down. the puffer will relax because it thinks its resting on its side as well.

less stress all around.