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PetFish Index / Articles / How To
How I Ship Fish
By Blessed Silence
First I use
fresh water that has not had fish in it, but has
been aged for about a week. I dont use
heaters in most of my tanks so the temp is the
same, and no additives so all the chemistry is
usually the same. I use bag buddies and
breather bags, but cheap ol me sees that 1 bag
buddie works for 1 gallon of water so I get a
pitcher and put about 2 quarts of water per bag
buddie. Lasts alot longer for me that
way.
A side shot of "betta cups" and the
bag buddie water with 3 fry in each cup.
Shot from the top.
Fish in
the bag and the top tied off.
I have only had 1 DOA when I have
shipped and that was caused by the fish getting
stuck in the corner of the bag. So now I
tape the corners so they wont get
stuck.
All
bagged and ready to go, with these fish since they
are fry I have put 3 to a bag, the fry are about
1/2 to 3/4 of an inch, if they were adults or
really sensative I would only put 1 per bag.
I also add extras to any orders, so for an order
of 10 fry I ship out 12, this will help if there
is a chance of any DOA's, if they all make it the
person gets 2 extra fish and is happy and more
likely to cocme back to me for more.
I wrap the bags with poly fiber
you get at the craft store for baby
blankets. The reason I do this is because
the breather bags work by allowing oxygen in and
co2 out of the bag, if they are touching another
bag that is less area for that exchange to take
place. With them wrapped up the bags can
touch without having to worry about not enough
exchange going on.
An
empty box, notice how tight the corners are and
how they are overlaped on one side. I make
the boxes on my table saw with a plywood
blade. I pick up the 4X8 sheet of 3/4" foam
from home depot, this costs around $8.00 here,
might be different in your area. I cut the
bottom and top to fit the whole box, the sides
will fit lenghtwise minus the thickness of the
foam, and the height will be minus 2X the
thickness of the foam, you want to have room for a
bottom and a top.
It may look like overkill
using a tablesaw, but I cut up 1 sheet of 4X8 foam
at a time and this is a time saver for
me.
Fish bagged up wrapped with the poly
fiber in the box.
I
use packing peanuts because I dont like to use
crumpled newspaper, it packs too easily. I
get the peanuts for free from mailorder items I
receive, I also have my work save the peanuts from
items they receive. Alot of dr offices and
other business would save them for you as well if
you asked them. I put enough peanuts to make
it a tight fit but not enough to squish the bags
down.
Now I
put the lid on, notice I have a little tape tag on
the lid, this helps when the people receive the
fish, its easier to get the lid off.
I
put an invoice in with the address it is to be
delivered to, this helps if the label gets damaged
and the PO opens it to see if there is any info to
where its supposed to be shipped to. I also
add a care sheet and instructions on how to
acclimate them, some people already know how to
acclimate them, but alot of people who buy fish
online don't, better safe then sorry.
Now after I close up the box I write
the name of who its going to, I usually ship 8-10
boxes at a time so this is a big help and a time
saver when you do the labels. I use the full
sheet labels that you can print on a laser
printer. If you go to http://www.usps.com/ you can
register there to buy and print postage
online. The benifit in this is that with
most postage you get a free confermation number
and it will email the person receiving the package
that it is on its way. If you were to buy
the confermation number at the post office it
would cost $0.44 this is included with postage
online. Also if you go to http://www.usps.com/ and print
it there are no extra charges for postage like
there is on http://www.paypal.com/ but you
cant purchase all of the diffent kinds of postage,
but for the most part you will be using
priority.
Now I am cheap I admit that.
The label only goes on 1/2 of the sheet so why
waiste a full sticker?
The full page labels
cost me $0.30 each, so if I cut them in half the
label is only $0.15, still cheaper then buying the
shipping confermation at the PO desk.
On the outside of the box on all 4
sides and on the top next to the label after you
have printed it I place the referance from the
post office that says you can ship fish via
priority mail. This way if they want to
argue too much they can look it up
themselves.
The label should quote: Perishable, Small Cold-Blooded Animals, DMM C022.32
Now
you need to weigh your box, remember when figuring
the price you always round up to the full pound,
when purchasing a label online it is done
automatically, but if you want to quote someone
round up.
Finished label (edited to remove
personal information off) I remove the label off
of the full sheet of paper then cut the label to
size.
Depending on the time of year
you will want to use a heat or cool pack, but make
sure you use the right size and the smaller the
box the smaller the pack you will need.
Now
with priority I send them out on saturday morning,
they will usually arrive monday or tuesday.
I get all my fish ready and packaged so I can end
up at the post office to drop them off right when
they open up. You might want to check with
your local PO to see when they send out the last
shipment of priority mail, some of the smaller
ones don't send it out on a Saturday.
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