Breather Bags - Leave an air bubble or not?

[rebe]

Hello!
I'm going to be transporting some fish, they'll be in the bags for around 5-6 hours.
I'll have an insulated box and animal transport heat packs.

I bought breather bags because I don't have oxygen to fill bags with myself. I was under the impression that you are supposed to fill them completely with water and leave no air. But I was talking to a fish guy who seemed to know his stuff, and he said that fish won't last even 20 minutes without an air pocket in a breather bag.

Do I pack them in the breather bags with 1/3 water and 2/3s air like normal bags?

 

[gwand]

Fill the breather bag completely with water (leaving just enough space to tie it closed), no air bubble.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I have been shipping fish for over 20 years. Most of them have been in the bag for 36 hours before the recipient opened the bag.. The fish I ship sell for anywhere from $125 o a few $100. I have never needed nor used oxygen. For 5 hours there is little worry about oxygen. When I bag my fish I follow a few rules. One of these is there should be at least 50% air in the bag. By air I mean the stuff we breathe not pure oxygen.

I have never used breather bags. I have also had a few boxes get delayed in transit and take as much as a couple of days. Mpst of the times I have had fish die in transit was because it was in colder weather and I put in shorter term heat packs as I was using overnight shipping. I learned to use longer duration heat packs to prevent this. I have them from 20 hours to 72 hours (3 days) and because of the styro the heat lingers for beyond the amount of time the heat pack works.

In the dark the fish are less active and in cooler water the same thing applies. Up to a point this helps with survival as it means the fish are using less oxygen.

 

[GaryE]

I was able to bring wild caught fish through 10 days of travel in Gabon, and then back on a 48 hour diverted plane ride followed by a 10 hour drive, and lost 2 percent of them. They were in no bubble breathers, although in the field I did water changes every 24 to 48 hours, reusing the bags.
If you bought breathers on Amazon, and got the longlife (or a similar name with green print), be extra careful as a colleague had those and a few ruptured. I had Chinese ones with nothing printed on them, and some old Kordon ones. One fish per bag (but my bags were small ones).

 

[rebe]

@gwand @TwoTankAmin @GaryE
Thank you all for your replies!
Those are actually the exact brand I've got Gary. Should I change approach and get some traditional bags do you think?
I'm trying to pack them in the way that I will be the least stressed about.

I only started driving on my own the last couple of months, and I'll be driving on the motorways for the first time. I'm travelling so far with the fish because it's super important to me that the fish go to a good home.

So trying to pack the fish in a way that will not add to my stress load

 

[rebe]

The long life breather bags I mean.
I'd also be putting around 5-6 tiger barbs in each bag

 

[Colin_T]

Breather bags are designed to allow air into the bag but not let water drip out. The idea is to fill the bag completely with water and seal it up. This stretches the bag a bit and allows tiny pores in the bag to let air in and out of the water but stops water leaking out of the bag. Theoretically fish can live in the bag for weeks.

With a normal plastic fish bag you have 1/3 to 1/2 water and the rest air. This allows the air in the bag to keep the oxygen level in the water up. However, as the oxygen gets used up there is no way to replenish it short of opening the bag and resealing it.

Breather bags add weight because the bags have to be full of water and are not normally used for air travel. For fish travelling 5 or 6 hours, you could use either type of bag.

Don't feed the fish for 24 hours before you bag them up and ship them out.

Do a big water change and gravel clean a day or two before you send them so the water in the bag is cleaner.

Clean the filter a few days before sending them. Don't replace filter media when you clean the filter, just wash it in a bucket of tank water.

If you use normal bags with air and water, you can double or triple bag them (one bag inside another). You cannot double bag the breather bags.

 

[GaryE]

How large are your breather bags? 5 or 6 tiger barbs in a bag (how large are the bags) can be rough on each other. In any bag.

I would still use the longlifes over poly bags. You aren't travelling for long, or far (though as a new driver it may look like quite a journey). In Ireland, wouldn't a six hour drive drop you into the sea Ahem, Canadian perspective - that's a trip to the fish store here.

You have to tie longlifes tightly. That's all. And don't let the bags touch each other as they wick like tents in a rainstorm. I put some kind of fabric or paper bag around each breather.

Don't feed the fish for at least 24 hours before bagging. 36 to 48 is better. In the trade they use the elegant term 'crapping out' for what that does. It drastically reduces pollution in a small body of water.

 

[Colin_T]

I would still use the longlifes over poly bags. You aren't travelling for long, or far (though as a new driver it may look like quite a journey). In Ireland, wouldn't a six hour drive drop you into the sea Ahem, Canadian perspective - that's a trip to the fish store here.

A 6 hour drive doesn't get you out of our state. It doesn't even get you half way across our state It must be weird living in Europe where you can visit a different country and get home in a day trip

 

[GaryE]

It must be a wonderful luxury to be able to travel like that. I would love to live in the EU. But here, I can visit my sister with a simple 38 hour one way drive...
I had a Central European friend here in the summer - in under 3 hours he can be in 6 different countries with several different languages. Plus he brought me fish in breather bags and they survived 4 days and a flight from Austria.

We stress a lot about travelling with fish, but well packed and tended to, they do fine.

 

[rebe]

@GaryE @Colin_T
Thank you both for your replies!
I don't have enough longlifes to double bag them, so if you do thing they are very prone to bursting then maybe I should use poly bags?

My action plan is to do a big tank clean two days before the trip, and stop feeding after that too.

The drive isn't 6 hours, that would definitely get me from coast to coast
The drive will be about 4 hours, but I want to make sure they'll be okay if I need to stop and take a break on the way. And to account for the time getting them ready, and for temperature acclimation to the new tank too.

I've taken a picture of the long life bag held against the tank with my barbs in it, so if you think 5/6 is too many per bag then I'll have to use poly bags instead

Also, I'll be using a special fish heat pack to keep them warm inside a polystyrene insulated box. The packs can still reach 40-50 degrees Celsius, so should I put it on the outside of the box?

 

[GaryE]

Honestly, for four hours I'd put bags in a cooler. Their temperature range is 20-26, and during my time in Ireland, it was not a cold country. The fish don't mind the dampness...I would leave the heat pack for another time. Keep them dark to minimize their aggression.
I might put 2 or 3 tiger barbs in a bag that size. I prefer to single pack fish, but that is a way bigger breather bag than I've ever used. That one won't pop. I'd only fill it 2/3 max, to have a lot of bag to tie.
Consider that your fish travelled from Singapore, Indonesia or somewhere in that general region to Ireland, and think about the time involved. Barring an unforseeable problem, they'll survive just fine. You'll suffer more worrying about them.

 

[rebe]

You'll suffer more worrying about them.

I really think that's going to be the case
I need to order more bags regardless now (the person I'm bringing them too is interested in some corys and schooling fish I've got).

Would your recommendation be to get more breathers (Vs polys)?

 

[Colin_T]

I'm curious now, are you breeding fish and delivering them to someone or do you work in a pet shop and someone has ordered some fish so you're going for a drive to deliver them?

If you're working in a pet shop, most places bag the fish, stick them in an esky and get a courier to deliver them.

Make sure the person you are delivering them to has checked their water chemistry (pH, GH & KH) and it's similar to yours. And make sure they have checked their water quality (ammonia, nitrite & nitrate). Maybe get them to do a water change a day or two before you take the fish to them so they don't need to do a water change straight after the fish are delivered. This is less stressful to the fish if they can spend a week or more settling into their new home before a water change gets done.

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Double Bagging Fish
The reason most places double bag fish is "just in case" the bag leaks at the rubber band or the fish spikes the bag with a fin. Tiger barbs aren't going to spike a bag and make it leak but if the rubber band snaps or isn't done up well enough, the bag could leak. Using a second bag over the first (double bagging) pretty much guarantees the fish and water will get there in the bag. Airlines also require fish to be double or triple bagged.
*NB* You can't double bag if using breather bags. They have to be used singly and never double bagged.

For a short trip with a few tiger barbs, you could put them all in one bag (use a bigger one than in the picture) and seal it up and they should be fine. Then wrap the bag in a towel and put it in an esky (cooler). Put another towel in the esky to stop the bag moving about. Put the lid on and pop it in the car. then go for a drive.
*NB* Don't put a towel around them if using breather bags. You can put a towel in the esky to stop the bags moving about but make sure most of the breather bag is exposed to air.

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Other Options
There is another option. Put them in a 20 litre bucket that is 2/3 water. Get a battery powered air pump and a miullticoloured plastic airstone and put the fish in the bucket of water and use the pump to keep air bubbling in the water. You drill a small hole in the lid to put the airline through so the lid can stay snuggly fitted and water doesn't splash out.

That's how I kept fish when I was collecting. I had a couple of 45 litre plastic bins with lids and put them on the back seat of the car. I put the seatbelt on them. I filled them between 1/2 and 2/3 with water and put the lid on. I ran a battery powered air pump when in the field and when I got back to the car I used a normal 240 volt air pump plugged into a power inverter, which plugs into the car's cigarette lighter socket. I would have fish in those buckets for up to a week and they were fine. The biggest issue I had was the water warming up in the car due to the heat here.

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Corydoras
If the people who want the fish are after Corydoras, they will need double bagging, and they can sometimes spike each other in the bag so only put a couple of Cories in each bag and try to lay the bags down on their side so there is more room for the fish (less chance of spiking each other).

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Heat Packs
There's no need for a heat pack if you have the bags in an esky with a lid. Tiger barbs and Corydoras can tolerate cool conditions (16-26C) without any real issues and if you have a few bags of fish in a sealed esky, that's in a car driving during the day, the water temperature is unlikely to drop. If you're really concerned about temperature, you can add a couple of bags of tank water to the esky (no fish in them) and they will help stabilise the temperature in the esky.

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Floating Breather Bags
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you can float breather bags to get the water temperature in them the same as the aquarium water. If I recall correctly (been a long time since I had anything to do with these bags), you either open the bags and pour the fish in without acclimatising them, or you empty half the water out and reseal the bags so they are 1/2 air and 1/2 water. Then float them for 10-15 minutes before adding the fish to the tank.

 

[emeraldking]

Hello!
I'm going to be transporting some fish, they'll be in the bags for around 5-6 hours.
I'll have an insulated box and animal transport heat packs.

I bought breather bags because I don't have oxygen to fill bags with myself. I was under the impression that you are supposed to fill them completely with water and leave no air. But I was talking to a fish guy who seemed to know his stuff, and he said that fish won't last even 20 minutes without an air pocket in a breather bag.

Do I pack them in the breather bags with 1/3 water and 2/3s air like normal bags?

Well, that guy who suppose to know his stuff is incorrect. I use breathing bags as well. It's complete nonsense what he's claiming about breathing bags.
And yes, breathing bags can be totally filled with water. No extra air or oxygen in the bag needed for it's two way process. Such bags let oxygen in (the present air is used in the package box) and releases CO2.

But if those fish are just 5-6 hours on their way, no need to use expensive breathing bags. Also you don't need to put in oxygen from a oxygen tank. You can just use the air of the environment. The oxygen it contains is sufficient for that time frame. They would even be good after a being a day in such a bag.

Normal rule is just a third water and two third air in normal fish bags.