Transportation of Corals "Dry Method"

[biju708]

I need to transport some corals tomorrow the flight should take about 3hours so in total these corals would take a 5hr trip including time to arrive to airport and to my house.

I came across this article today http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-11/eb/index.php In which it states that corals can survive without water for a good number of hours and that one should try shipping without water. What do you guys think ? I need to transport 3 clams.

 

[DaveK]

I would ship clams in water. Corals too for that matter. It would be a lot less stressfull, and the water would give them some thermal protection. I'd ship them in an insulated box too if possible.

If I'm buying livestock in winter from a LFS that is more than a few minutes away, I take a styrofoam box and put a couple of bags of hot water in it. This keeps the livestock warm.

As a note, every coral I purchased, even if online, came shipped in water.

 

[mattie]

i have never heard of shipping corals without water
eric borman is a wise man but i have recieved and sent many corals all came in plastic bags in a cooler with some type of heat pack if its only 5 hours a heat pack may not be required.
get a styro box from your fish store most are cool and will let you have it free and get some large enough plastic bags 3 for each coral double bag and use a bag to wrap the coral to limit its movement in the bag
and defintly bag the clams they cannot be out of water too long. some say a clam should never touch air but i have not seen any problems with that
good luck i am sure others may chime in.

 

[gussy]

It's a theory saying that it may be possible. The only thing that I've seen shipped wet but not submerged are anemonies.

 

[mps9506]

I've done the waterless shipping for acros with zero problems. However I have to state that I have had zero problems with wholesalers and transhippers and personal shipments of acros being shipped in water, if they are styrofoamed at the bottom so they float upside down always submerged.

I prefer to get my snails and hermits shipped in a bag with wet newspaper.

Clams will need the water.

 

[cheeks69]

That was an excellent article by Eric and from what I remember he was refering to SPS corals in particular, they don't ship very well. SPS in many shallow areas in the reef are exposed to the equatorial sun for hours during low tide and have a natural way of protecting themselves.

Eric Borneman:

As I have written in the past, corals, and indeed, all species with a mucus-covered epithelium - a trait that probably includes the majority of species in the trade - also have a productive bacterial flora that utilize the mucus as a nutrient substrate. As such, mucus in a small water volume essentially turns a shipping bag into a nutrient broth that cultures microbes at logarithmic rates. It is little wonder that so many bags become fouled in transit. It is also little surprise that species known to produce copious amounts of mucus, such as Xeniids and Acroporids, are often the most sensitive to shipping and to fouled bag water. In such cases it does not matter whether there is an oxygen cap or not because the rate of respiration is greater than the rate of diffusion from the cap of gas into the water, as evidenced in the tank trial described above.

While mucus has some detrimental effects on submerged coral specimens, it also acts to keep tissues moist in exposed specimens. Mucus is primarily what allows the coral reef species, including corals, to survive exposure at low tide (although methods of preventing desiccation may involve other traits and behaviors, as well, including shells, scalloping, contraction, color patterns, burrowing, etc.). By shipping corals "damp" or "dry," mucus production acts beneficially, as it does in the wild, instead of detrimentally, as it does in shipping bags of seawater.

 

[ReefDave]

I dunno if anyone else has experience w/ transhipping but, when my work gets a tranship order, most all polyp rocks (zoos, shrooms, star, etc.) are shipped just wrapped in wet newspaper (I'm assuming to cut shipping costs.) and we have never had a prob w/ them (when recieved, we use Kent's coral dip and they do just fine. On the way of clams tho, I've always understood that they cannot live out of water for very long at all.

 

[mps9506]

I dunno if anyone else has experience w/ transhipping but, when my work gets a tranship order, most all polyp rocks (zoos, shrooms, star, etc.) are shipped just wrapped in wet newspaper (I'm assuming to cut shipping costs.) and we have never had a prob w/ them (when recieved, we use Kent's coral dip and they do just fine. On the way of clams tho, I've always understood that they cannot live out of water for very long at all.

Our tranships come in this way also for polyps and mushrooms as well as hermits and snails. None of the stoney corals are shipped this way however.
We don't tranship much however as the fill rates are next to impossible to predict, sometimes almost 100% and we've received as little as 40%. Plus fish don't tranship very well since they have to make two or three stops to get to us.

 

[ReefDave]

There seems to be little to no loss at all(maybe 1 out of 20-30 or so pieces come in dead). My manager doesnt tranship fish basically at all (we did one this year, first time in a few years and was totally dissapointed w/ it.(then again,Witfull has 2 fish from that shipment doing great.) Corals we do every once and a while (2-3 times a year) when quality or sea dwelling doesnt have a whole lot. or if were just trying to fill up some tanks.

 

[clownmorph]

We brought in both direct and tranship only. We received polyps, inverts and SPS with little or no water. Zoanthids especially are sent without water. Wholesalers will tell stores a different story but 90% of the transhippers and direct suppliers send out certain corals only covered with wet newspaper. There are also certain fish that can be sent with no water because at night they come out of the water onto the beach to feed and breed.

 

[Witfull]

i used to transship and its amazing how many fish can be shipped in a few teaspoons of water, damsels and chromis would come in in 2" bags barely covered in water, they always did well. zoa, shrooms and rics,,,wet paper, rock, wet paper. larger fish need more water but were usually had a seditive in the water to slow respatory functions. hard corals were wet paper and water. never seen anything shipped "dry".

 

[Witfull]

(then again,Witfull has 2 fish from that shipment doing great.)

Yup, tusk and antennatta lion~

 

[mps9506]

Sheez, I've had tranships come with 30-50% doa on the fish. Really not acceptable in my book. And you don't get a credit for that. I still prefer to go through the wholesalers for fish and tranship coral and rock.
Regardless with USAirways shutting down the cargo hub in my town, pretty soon I will only be able to go through wholesalers that can do FedEx

 

[ANIMALZ]

I'm with you on the tranship Mike. It never seems to be woth the extra hassle. Unless you have a fish only store and need to order huge volumes then I don't see how you can make transhipping work between the fill rates and the DOA's. As for shipping the clams dry I'm pretty sure that would kill them. As far as I know most corals with fleshy bodies including clams and LPS corals have a water vascular system. In other words they run on water like we run on blood. If you take these animals out of the water for a substyantial amount of time they will at the least lose a great deal of their size as the water dries out. It is possible that once you get the anomals back in water they will come back but why take that chance?

 

[Witfull]

true, you cant trans on a small basis. i would get 15-20 boxes for 2 stores with 120 salt tanks each. i also had a good rep with the shipper...i didnt get the crappy box of leathers just to fill the order up...lol.they would call and tell me selection was poor and my order would be held until it could be filled. its a shame, but i doubt its done like this anymore....things change with time i guess~

 

[mps9506]

true, you cant trans on a small basis. i would get 15-20 boxes for 2 stores with 120 salt tanks each. i also had a good rep with the shipper...i didnt get the crappy box of leathers just to fill the order up...lol.they would call and tell me selection was poor and my order would be held until it could be filled. its a shame, but i doubt its done like this anymore....things change with time i guess~

I would say on average the customer service is pretty good. We downsized our salt, so we went from 10-16 boxes a week between two stores to about 6-8 boxes. No point in transhipping that little unless it was all corals.
But I find a good sales person at the wholesalers would take care of me a bit better than anyone in Indo ever could.

BTW, I think the thread has officially been hijacked

 

[Witfull]

BTW, I think the thread has officially been hijacked

the free flow of information~~not hijacked,,,redirected,,,lol