Live Fish and Egg Transportation.
We are indeed lucky in that we are keeping and breeding species of fish that can (most of the time) withstand the rigours of intercontinental postal demands. Below is a concise way including pictures of how I go about preparing to send Fish and Eggs around the globe. Some aquarists may have opinions and issues with such practices, but I say to them, if they have fish in their tanks then how did they get there.
Transportation of Fish.
The Royal Mail do not like (forbid) you from sending adult fish through their system but for some reason they allow you to send fish fry. So its entirely up to you to decide whether you want to use this method or use a courier service. One is more expensive than the other so no guesses as to which I use.
I use small high density polystyrene boxes around 10 inches square and have a wall thickness of around 1 inch. They were obtained from a friend who worked in a hospital in Glasgow. I acquired them (20) many years ago when political correctness was not so prevalent. They are excellent little boxes and were used apparently to transfer organs. (Macabre I know). Anyway the boxes have been sent as far as Sweden with heat packs and with no fish losses thus far.
So lets get to the job in hand.The first thing I do is to line the poly box with newspaper (this will soak up any water seepage) then I place in a double layer of Bubble-Wrap. I let both of these liners over hang the top of the box as they will be folded inward at the end.
The fish are starved of food for a good 24 hours prior to dispatch and are bagged individually (one fish in each bag) and clearly marked with the Genus, Species, Location Code and the Sex. I place around ¼ water to ¾ air in the bags.
I would normally place 4 bags in that type of box and I would place 2 bags inside a larger bag. (X2).
Now depending on the distance of country Im dispatching to or the time of year, the decision has to be made whether or not to use Heat-Packs. I always use 2 heat-packs, one on the lid and one on the base. The newspaper and bubble-wrap keep the packs from directly touching the fish bags.
Once complete, and I am satisfied that everything is snug within the confines of the box, I insert a care and factsheet on the species in question, just to give the recipient some idea of the conditions (water stats etc) that they have been kept in, along with other information such as feeding etc.
Finally I begin to finish off the package, cover over the access bubble-wrap and newspaper and place and extra layer of both on top. The lid is placed on top and securely taped down with heavy duty packaging tape.
Now all that is left to do is to wrap the whole thing in brown paper, stick on a few fragile and this way up stickers and clearly print on the recipients address on both top and bottom of the box.
Then its off down to the local Post Office to hear how much its all going to cost.
SO its clear to see I dont make money from my hobby. I get great satisfaction from feedback from the recipients which is worth more than the money. (Its not a get rich quick scheme).
Transportation of Eggs
Transporting killifish eggs for me is simply placeing the advertised amount of eggs (in water or peat as species dictates) into a plastic vial (obtainable off Ebay) The vial is clearly labled with
Species Name...
Number of Eggs...
Date Collected...
Date Expected and again a Factsheet is included.
The receptical is then wrapped in cotton wool and bubblewrap and inserted into a padded Jiffy-Bag. and addressed.
I hope this little article has provided some insight on the topic of sending Killifish Fish/Eggs through the post. Again some people will inevitably disagree with the ethics of these practices and in reply I would suggest to them that certain killifish are on endangered species lists or are totally eradicated in their natural habitats and it is through dedicated hobbyists breeding and distributing such species that they don't become extinct altogether.
