Survival/DOA rate for mail order fish?

[Donya]

I have a couple questions for anyone who either regularly deals with mail-order fish whether as a seller or buyer: what kind of survival rate do you expect/experience these days, and with what kind of transit time for the box? (Also if it's a fundamentally dumb question and too much down to the specifics of the fish species involved, please tell me that too!)

I have found myself in the unfortunate position of not really having a LFS for livestock anymore...at least not with the "local" and "fish" parts of the acronym both applying to the same store. There is exactly one big box store within range, but it no longer carries the sort of livestock I would want to buy, and they don't custom order things in for customers, so I can basically only get dry goods there. Then I realized that traveling to a more traditional LFS would take a whole day and cost almost as much in gas as overnight shipping for a box of critters due to the dingy layout of the roads here (why go in a straight line when you can zig-zag your way there! LOL). So, I started getting most of my livestock online for the last couple years. I do have fish but I'm mostly an invert person, and I've had very good success on the invert front even with things that are well known to be finicky regardless of whether you get them in the post or at a LFS. My very few FW invert shipments have all been perfect and my more numerous SW invert ones have I've only lost one due to the actual transit (and it was one of the super finicky things). So I tried my first mail order SW fish this week in an order of other critters...and got one very DOA fish but a bunch of very much alive and active inverts, some of which are again finicky types that I expected to be the DOA risk, not so much the fish. The fish otherwise looked in good physical condition and was packed very well, and it was a species that's normally quite hardy, so I'm scratching my head a bit. I believe those who packed it knew what they were doing and the box spent around 16h in transit I think. Naturally, as someone who now has a grand single point of experience now on the fish side, I'm now trying to figure out if I simply spun the wheel as one does with mail order and got extremely unlucky this time, or if the success rate with fish is perhaps lower than I've become accustomed to with inverts. Since I'm now trying to gauge whether I want to have a go at this again, I would love to hear what the fish shipping success rate experience is if there are other folks floating around here who do this more regularly. When buying from an LFS of course, the store absorbs the baseline DOA rate for everything, so it's not something I've ever really had a handle on.

 

[anewbie]

When i give them away (I don't sell fishes) the success has been 100% even some krobia that were delayed 7 or so days by usps.

When i buy fishes it has been mixed - originally i was having virtually no deaths - maybe 1 in a 100 but recently that has gone up a bit - mostly with schoolers. For non schoolers it is a bit lower but recently higher than i think it should be - and it is not as you expected - as some relatively fragile like fishes have been just fine and settle in well. Some tank raised schoolers have had a higher than expected death rate in the first months.

 

[connorlindeman]

@TwoTankAmin

 

[emeraldking]

I truly believe that no one can state a survival rate in this case. There are multiple factors that may influence the risk of survival during transport. How are they packed, bottles bags or jars? And in case of bags: Just regular fish bags or breathing bags? How are the outdoor temperatures during transport and during depot? How well are those insulated in the package? How much oxygen is present in the bag or package (in case of using breathing bags)? How many fish are there in one bag? And do they have enough space in the bag, looking at size of those fish and behavior? How long will they be on their way? Are they protected against package throwing (couriers can handle those packages roughly)? It doesn't matter if the package says careful, breakable, live fish or something else that may tell the courier to handle it with care. In practice they are often not so careful.

 

[Donya]

I truly believe that no one can state a survival rate in this case. There are multiple factors that may influence the risk of survival during transport. How are they packed, bottles bags or jars? And in case of bags: Just regular fish bags or breathing bags? How are the outdoor temperatures during transport and during depot? How well are those insulated in the package? How much oxygen is present in the bag or package (in case of using breathing bags)? How many fish are there in one bag? And do they have enough space in the bag, looking at size of those fish and behavior? How long will they be on their way? Are they protected against package throwing (couriers can handle those packages roughly)? It doesn't matter if the package says careful, breakable, live fish or something else that may tell the courier to handle it with care. In practice they are often not so careful.

I probably should have said I'm assuming no obvious point of catastroph in the shipping process. So not odds of a package getting shipped through a hurricane or getting totally beaten up falling down a long flight of stairs, etc. I'm interested more in cases where it looks like things went about as well as they could transit-wise.

I guess what I'm trying to gauge is how likely in a squishy sense fish are to die from "average" stress of shipping that went "well" as far as standard practices go - which I'm sure includes plenty rough handling, but my fragile inverts survive that really well - so I felt like it *should* be good odds for fish, but maybe not. Like how bad is it when an LFS opens a pack of fish from a wholesaler if the shipping went well? Or is it truly all over the place to the point where there's no baseline? I have a vague feel for that baseline now with various inverts now and even for live baby chicks. I just have zero sense of it for fish, which of course are a rather different kind of organism from a sea urchin, snail, or bird.

 

[anewbie]

I truly believe that no one can state a survival rate in this case. There are multiple factors that may influence the risk of survival during transport. How are they packed, bottles bags or jars? And in case of bags: Just regular fish bags or breathing bags? How are the outdoor temperatures during transport and during depot? How well are those insulated in the package? How much oxygen is present in the bag or package (in case of using breathing bags)? How many fish are there in one bag? And do they have enough space in the bag, looking at size of those fish and behavior? How long will they be on their way? Are they protected against package throwing (couriers can handle those packages roughly)? It doesn't matter if the package says careful, breakable, live fish or something else that may tell the courier to handle it with care. In practice they are often not so careful.

All that is true of course but one can state the success rate of fishes received or fishes sent just not if some special event cause the death (in the case of death). Btw i consider the first week or so as part of that success. The fishes i've sent have been less common species of apistogramma and while they have some sensitiivty to temperature as all fishes they have been very good condition when sent having been in my tanks for many months - i think that places i order from (aquaticclarity and wetspot) are flipping fishes faster which is causing the increase in the death rate.

 

[gwand]

I have not had a DOA in the last 25 fishes that were delivered by overnight UPS. In fact I can’t remember any DOA fishes sent by overnight UPS. But I am running about a 10% death rate during 4 weeks of quarantine. This year I mail ordered mostly from The Wet Spot and Aqua Imports. I use to buy a lot of fishes from Dan but I don’t like soft water fishes living in his hard water, even if he has rapid turnover.

 

[Donya]

i think that places i order from (aquaticclarity and wetspot) are flipping fishes faster which is causing the increase in the death rate.

Hmmmmm. I wonder if this is actually the main thing that explains why my single healthy-looking, mail-ordered fish kicked it in a box where the rest of the order was fragile inverts that are still happy and good.

For the majority of SW inverts, the longer they are held in a QT type tank, store tank, or other bare bones temporary space, the more stress and poor health. Although there are exceptions, marine inverts are generally not fed properly in holding tanks as they would be in an established system. The same is true for some FW inverts too. Of course, being plopped right from one shipping bag to another also isn't great, but in general I would think a lengthy wait of, say, weeks in the distributor's tank is not a great thing for inverts.

But for fish, a longer wait = better survivability? It's probably reaaaally hard to find that for SW dealers online. I would imagine most marine fish are flipped as fast as possible along with the inverts. But the inverts may actually have the advantage stress-wise in that case. Although maybe only a small advantage; still sounds from the experiences posted so far like I spun the wheel of fortune and landed on the tiny bankrupt slice.

 

[anewbie]

Hmmmmm. I wonder if this is actually the main thing that explains why my single healthy-looking, mail-ordered fish kicked it in a box where the rest of the order was fragile inverts that are still happy and good.

For the majority of SW inverts, the longer they are held in a QT type tank, store tank, or other bare bones temporary space, the more stress and poor health. Although there are exceptions, marine inverts are generally not fed properly in holding tanks as they would be in an established system. The same is true for some FW inverts too. Of course, being plopped right from one shipping bag to another also isn't great, but in general I would think a lengthy wait of, say, weeks in the distributor's tank is not a great thing for inverts.

But for fish, a longer wait = better survivability? It's probably reaaaally hard to find that for SW dealers online. I would imagine most marine fish are flipped as fast as possible along with the inverts. But the inverts may actually have the advantage stress-wise in that case. Although maybe only a small advantage; still sounds from the experiences posted so far like I spun the wheel of fortune and landed on the tiny bankrupt slice.

Fishes are very stressed when shipped to the store; so flipping them without adequate wait will just further stress them making it more likely to cause issues.

 

[Colin_T]

I haven't sent or received fish for years but when we did it in the shop, we normally had 100% success with zero DOAs (dead on arrival).

We did several things when shipping fish.
1) Don't feed them for 24 hours before shipping. That gives them time to purge their gut and there will be less poop and ammonia in the bag when they are travelling.

2) We did a big water change and gravel clean a couple of days before shipping. This meant the water was clean during transit but the fish also had 2 days to recover from the water change.

3) We normally didn't sell fish that had just come in and most fish had been in the tanks for at least 2 weeks. That gives them time to recover from the previous trip and to get use to the new conditions.

4) The people who caught the fish were good and could catch out a single specific neon tetra in a tank with thousands. So we would spend a few seconds catching a fish and getting them into buckets and that reduced the stress on the fish.

5) We double or triple bagged the fish. If they had spines and regularly popped bags, we put newspaper between the bags and triple bagged them. All other fish went into double bags (one bag inside another). Big fish and aggressive fish and fish with spines were bagged individually, so were expensive fish like discus. Smaller schooling fishes like tetras, barbs & rasboras were put into one or two bags, depending on how many fish were going out. A single species of Corydoras normally got put into one bag that was triple bagged. If the Cories were big or there were lots of them, they were spread out between a number of bags (5-10 fish per bag).

6) We had 1/3 water and 2/3 oxygen in the bags. We regularly added a small piece of neutral block to stabilise the pH and a sprinkling of Ammogon/ Zeolite (ammonia adsorbing granules) to keep ammonia levels down. This was more for fish travelling for long periods (more than 4 or 5 hours). Ammogon and neutral blocks won't work in saltwater.

7) In winter and colder weather we put a bag of warm tank water in the eskies (polystyrene foam boxes with lids) to help stabilise temperatures and we tried to fill the eskies up. The more bags of fish in each box, the more stabile the temperature and the less the bags move around in the box.

8) We had a courier pick up the fish and they were delivered within 6-12 hours of being packed for local orders. Orders that travelled by plane and went across the country were delivered within 24 hours, and we took the boxes of fish straight to the airport when they were ready. All boxes had "LIVE FISH", "FRAGILE" and "HANDLE WITH CARE" on them.

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FISH FROM ASIA
When we got fish from Asia (fish farms), we had pretty low numbers of DOAs (maybe 20 fish in an order of 10,000). The problems arose a few days later when the stress started kicking in and diseases occurred. Then we could lose lots of fish if they weren't treated immediately. Once the fish had been through quarantine (used to be 2 weeks, is now 4 weeks in Australia), the numbers of sick or disease or dead fish dropped to virtually none.

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FISH FROM OTHER SIDE OF THE COUNTRY
When we got fish from suppliers over east (the other side of the country), we had good and bad results. If the fish didn't have diseases when they were packed, they were usually fine. However, the suppliers sometimes sent us fish that had diseases and they knew it, and those fish usually had bodies in the bags and needed treating immediately. This was caused by the companies wanting to fill the orders. We might order 200 of this species and 50 of that. The supplier had the numbers but their fish were sick and being treated. Instead of withholding the order for 3 or 4 days to finish treatment, they simply sent out fish and hoped they lived. Some did and some didn't. After we unpacked the orders we wrote down the DOAs and contacted the supplier, who credited us for the dead fish.

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WRAPPING UP
In my experience, inverts usually travel better than fish because fish are more open water and like to move around whereas most inverts tend to hang out in one area and don't move fast. Most inverts are really easy to catch compared to fish (snails, echinoderms, anemones, corals, etc, just pick them up and put them in a bag).

Fish might get chased for a while before being caught and that can kill them in the bag. It happened to me when a young guy at a shop refused to let me catch the fish and he spent 10 minutes chasing them around the tank. I was telling him to stop and leave it but he kept chasing them. Two fish died on the way home and the rest died the following day. That was caused by stress from the kid who didn't want to use two nets and didn't know how to catch fish. The boss was informed and I got a refund because they couldn't find replacement fish due to their availability (there were none available).

Normally if you do an online order and you get dead fish, photograph the fish in the bag and contact the supplier ASAP to let them know. Ideally if you can have someone film you opening the box of fish and unpacking them, that is perfect because it shows the box being opened and wow, a bag of dead fish. It's not always possible or convenient but it can be used to show the supplier the fish was dead on arrival. But normally you just photograph the dead fish in the bag/s and contact the supplier straight away to let them know what is going on. Then hopefully they refund or replace the fish.

Having the fish in transit for 16 hours is nothing if they were packed well and weren't exposed to extreme weather. In this case you were probably just unlucky. If the supplier seemed good then maybe try again and if you have the same issue, then find another supplier for fish.

 

[GaryE]

So many variables. What country you're in matters, as far as shipping efficacy. Where in that country are you? If you, like me, are slightly off the beaten track, shipping can be slower. I'm waiting for fish right now as I type (from Montreal to the east coast of Canada), and I know what can go wrong.
What month is it? I've ordered at the end of October because they had a 3 species I really wanted. I'm gambling. In September, I'd be way more confident. I don't care if the seller brings in a beautiful tetra that plays a mean rhythm guitar and prepares strong coffee, I don't order again til April.
In late July, when it gets hot, I would expect high losses in the QT weeks after arrival. Shipping is climate affected. Online shopping will never get around that. It's dangerous.

In a climate with more or less predictable temps, like a short ship in Australia or a lateral ship in Europe, a company can prepare. Ship me fish from a warm spot in North America to where I live, and the box will go through some interesting extremes.

I'm really not inclined to blame the fish, or often even the supplier. I have unpacked a lot of shipments from many countries in all seasons working with a wholesaler, and when you get a pallet with stacks of large boxes in cold or very hot weather, the dead fish are in the outside boxes. When a shipment goes wrong, it often means the shipper delayed sending and the weather changed. Or the boxes were left on a runway for a time. Or. Or. Or.