i shipped a box to pinner and it was RTSed... 7 days in transit and i lost 1 in 8 frags. i might have been all 8 to survive, but i really didn't want to open the last bag... =)

evening temperatures dips are very low.

Yep--I am using heat with anything except Southern deliveries. Even still I am trying to keep the coral away from the heat pack with stryo and packing bubbles.

I switched from paper towels to cut up strips of 8" x 16" fish bags. I created kind of a "nest" for the coral. We'll see---I just shipped my third acan echinata to Mudfish in FL---with no heat---with plastic bag strips.

I'm all outta echinata!!!

Unreal--USPS didn't deliver Mudfish's echinata.

I can't believe it.

i received a batch of rics today that had no heat pack coming up the easy coast the bad was very cold to touch but the rics opened up as soon as i pulled them out of the box and in to the light.
Once i found no heat pack i was like huh?!?!? dropped them in my tank to float them and the little devils were wide open just itching to get out of the bag.
I didnt think rics were that tough.





yea even if its to the wrong address!!!
I hate those SOB's With ever fiber of my being!!! i can not tell you how many times i have chased my packages around our building trying to figure out which place they delivered it to this time.

I was really thinking about commenting on this post, that I have a different view of the Postal Service. I've never had any problem with shipments of stuff over the years; in fact, I think it's pretty amazing when you stop to consider the bazillions of pieces of mail each day, that ANY of it gets to its intended destination, and much of it OVERNIGHT!

But then my GODDAM CORAL didn't show up today....

Poor Mark - he has gone crazy trying to get this simple little piece to me, and for no explainable reason, the gods are conspiring against us. Two pieces have arrived dead (can't figure why); now the GUARANTEED EXPRESS MAIL has failed to deliver the third attempt. It's lost in the wilds somewhere....

YAY!!! Mudfish's rainbow acan got there today alive!!! TWO WHOLE DAYS!!!

No heat pack---alive.

Lesson learned is that I have to understand where my coral is going at this time of year to judge heat.

I have stopped using the paper towels and am using the cut up plastic bag sleeve inside the shipping bag. That is working for SPS and LPS alike---right now anyway.

I am slowly getting my confidence back!!!

Izzue

what about this: Cut a peice of syrofoam (pain in the arse) in a circle to the circumference of the bag. Attach the frag plug into the center of the styrofoam and float it in the half filled bag upside down. Package as normal and include Arrow Up signs on all 4 sides of the box. This would keep the coral submerged and not touching anything! What do u think?

i shipped out 3 packages on monday using express(overnight). 2 of the packages was delivered the day after while 1 package did not.

when i punch in the tracking number the last update was on 4/16/07..... and all it said was that the package is enroute and has left california. nothing about whether or not it has been recieved by the other post office.

any ideas?

Was it guaranteed for next day arrival? Some of the time USPS cannot guarantee next day with express because the destination is not close enough to a major airport. I would recommend calling the post office or going into a post office and asking about it. You should be able to get your shipping refunded and express has some insurance built in, so you may be able to get some $ back for the lost coral. DO NOT SAY IT WAS LIVE CORAL, they will not cover it, instead say it was aquarium decorations. Good luck. Oh yeah and USPS web tracking usually updates each night...

Great thread guys. Just wanted to add something that happened to one of my shipments recently. It was a Xenia frag from a member. Packaging was great, pretty much like most of the posts here. The frag was banded to a styro float. Unfortunately the frag had flipped during shipping and the float held it smashed face up into the bag. Little guy hung tough for a few days before it expired. Please understand I am not here to bash anyone. IMO the shipper did what he thought to be best, and did a good job. I told them we will try again down the road. After seeing this, how about forming a U or even a triangle from foam to prevent this? Also understand I have never shipped anything so please go easy on me!! Just floating a thought out there (pardon the pun). I mean is this even possible given the size of available fish bags?

Make sure you check with USPS online to verify the "Express Service Committments" from zip to zip. Also--if you drop it off at the PO they will tell you "it's a 2 day Express".

As for the online tracking---that's slow and updated at night.

Lastly---Xenia is nearly impossible to ship. It's very touchy.

I haven't been using heat packs lately---remember I am in PA.

I have received coral from AL with no heat--with no problem.

Any recent experiences so we can remember this next year at this time???!!

Sup, Buuuudy . You are everywhere these days MVite. So I must add a little extra info to shipping this time of year. Heat pack or no heat pack?? First you should check the zipcode of where you are shipping to on www.weather.com to see what temps will be like. Often the case will be that it is colder (50-60) at night but 80 during the day. So I recommend a heat pack that will get you through the night but will be used up by moring when temps outside start to warm up. It is getting warmer by the day so this may not be necessary anymore, but for your spring and fall shipment, depending on what time you ship, an 8-12 hr heat pack will be fine. That way if USPS doesn't drop off the package till 3pm which, your coral won't be cooked by the heat pack+sun.

I also use pretty much the same method as Mvite. If you have heat packs just wrap them in more newspaper than usual to insulate them more and cut down on the heat. I also tape them to the lid and put all frag bags together into one bag.
I've shipped about 100 boxes with on average 4 corals in each box, and have only had 2 DOA shipments and that was in the 0 degree weather

See ya

Mr. Nut I presume.... Thanks for the input!

I am getting some siiiiick micros tomorrow and asked for no heatie.

I have a question. For those of you that ship & trade corals do you reuse the boxes and styro-foam. If you do, do you let the other person know that you reuse to help off set the cost. Just want to know. TIA

I fully plan to reuse all the boxes i have received.
Save a tree and all that hippy stuff

I would think that it is common practice to reuse that stuff, i mean, i have not thrown away anything since i started in the hobby and have found much of the stuff i have useful in other ways. not to mention very few sellers/traders here will charge you for that stuff, maybe in the middle of winter you might get charged for a heatpack but hey, big deal.

Thanks

Wow---I had some crazy shipping experiences that I can't explain but wanted to pass on.

I had some ebay sales that I shipped last week.

Two of the packages took 2 days through USPS Express. Both of them had montiporas in them!!! One went to NH--it had a rainbow, a sunset, and a superman in it....I should have sent it with an armed guard!! I used a heat pack because it seemed cold to ship from PA to NH---and I think that's what may have saved it.

The second package shipped to MD using no heat pack. It was a monti cap--2 days---none the worse for wear.

I have been using a slightly modified shipping method. I am using 6x12 bags---about 1/3 full of water---with HARDLY ANY AIR--there's air--but very little. Instead of the paper towels--I have been using cut up sleeves of 6x12 bags. I cut each 6x12 bag into three "sleeves" and I use one sleeve per bag/item. For some larger pieces, I used the sleeves to kind of trap the coral in the water.

2 days for SPS is NOT something I want to do regularly---but PHEW!!!

Now you're talkin!

That's how all the boxes I've ever unpacked in my years of LFS-working have been shipped. Sleeves made out of bags [usually black , though, for some reason]

Two days is nothing. I've had boxes, entire shipments even, delayed 3. Surprisingly, everything made it. Dead of winter, too.

We'll see about this tomorrow. I have two boxes that didn't get delivered like they were supposed to today. They were both SPS. Damn USPS has missed 5 in the last 3 weeks for me---after being like 99.9% accurate for one day Express.

WTF????

On Monday I shipped two pkgs containing SPS via USPS Express--montis and acros. Both packages got delayed for some reason and took 2 days!!! They were GUARANTEED OVERNIGHT!

The corals were fine for 2 days. Don't try this at home!! Explain it though.

Also--I don't see too many others postin here---you punk asses better start sending each other some coral ASAP!!!!!

just some tips that i heard

anthony calfo said a good way was the box for shiping wine bottles. the styrofam box for 1 bottle. you want 1/3 water to 2/3 air. and stick the heater or ice-pack in the neck area in the box. you dont want theheat or ice pack toching the bag for stable temps. make sure you tape the entire box shut, as in just the holes. thats all i remember

~snazzy

Oh yeah?

I am a HUGE fan of the 6x12 bag---1/3 full of water. Of that 1/3 water--14/15ths of it are water and 1/15th is air.

It's been rockin for me. Maybe it's summer shipping???

As a rule---corals aren't terribly "dirty". I don't know how much respiration goes on with gas exchange. The need for air sometimes causes areas that coral can get stuck in if the box is jostled while shipping. I fear that air exposure causes problems.

Snaz--I think you better hire Calfo for a private presentation.

Fixed for ya Mark....LOL

Why isn't this a sticky yet!!??

I link to this thread more than anything else.

how would i ship fish ?

This has been an interesting thread to read, it's funny how we are all going to the same place but we use a different road to get us there. Meaning, all of our shipping methods vary just a little bit.

I hope you guys don't mind me poking my head in here and saying hi, I'm John, the Live Deliveries Manager at Petsolutions.com and as soon as the fine folks here at the site get our check we'll be a sponsor with a banner up. I've been in the hobby coming up on 25 years now, and in the industry about 12 years with about 2 of those years here at Petsolutions. Anyhow, we ship out a few thousand boxes of live items each year and there are certainly a lot of methods out there to do it. Corals are much easier to deal with than fish, that is for certain.

We use heat and cold packs when the situation calls for it, but sometimes we don't use them at all if the temperature doesn't require it. We use solid styro boxes, about 1.25 inches thick that are packed inside of a corrugated cardboard box. Our pickups for UPS are always evening pickups, in Ohio it's about 5:30pm Eastern and on the west coast its about 5pm Cali time.

Now, I may have missed this in your shipping discussion, but something entertaining to think about is that all of your boxes shipped overnight through fedex or UPS go to central sorting hubs the majority of the time before heading to their final destination. So, something to consider other than where it's going and where you are shipping from is where it's going to be sorted at which is often where it spends the most time. Also, consider whether the shipper you are using is sorting your boxes in a climate controlled or non climate controlled situation. Once upon a time I know that one of the shipping companies used to actually sort boxes outside on the tarmac, whether it was 110 degrees or 75 degrees.

If you ship with UPS and the package is overnight, the box is probably headed for the sorting facility in Kentucky, even if that overshoots your destination and it has to back track to get to its end location. A lot of strange things happen to your packages no matter what shipper you're using. We've used both FEDEX and UPS over the years.

There was an article a while back in one of the fish magazines, for the life of me I can't remember which one, but it talked about shipping brain corals half way across the world wrapped only in wet paper towels with no other water and that they had a much higher survival rate than shipping them in water. They were shipping from around the area of Guam (I spent time living on Guam and in Florida as well as a kid) and they were shipping to the U.S.

A lot of interesting studies have been done over the years, but honestly I don't know that any of them have ever given absolute definitive evidence of "such and such" method is the end all be all of packing, and all other methods are inferior.

Some nice info there. I especially enjoy the above quote Seems like my packages get places much quicker than expected because of that sorting facility - 2 day air is nearly always overnight.

At what temp do you start using cold packs, and have you noticed any difference in DOA claims because of use (or lack of use) of cold packs?

Hey John--WELCOME, my man!!

The purpose of this thread is to have peeps stick their ideas in---so we can get a better understanding of what works and what doesn't.

Keep the good ideas coming!

Ice seems to be a hot topic lately.

Ice is so last summer.

I just got some Tubbs blues from a guy in MN off of frags.org. He shipped to me in PA with no insulation. Just zoas in a bag in a box!!! They still aren't open---but they look fine and the water was reasonable. They were shipped Express. I will keep you posted on this one. I wouldn't ship without any insulation.

Lame---

That<Cool

Vertigo--surprise surprise--wolv did it again. I think there have been threads about his shipping. He should just try and get some ideas here instead of wasting peeps time, money and coral.

Make sure you leave him a feedback thread.

topic is now sticky!

Ummm..holy crap!
I almost traded w/ vertigo! I think thats gonna be a nevermind then

Mvite, Hello...the issue I had at one time was with Nray203, it wasnt my shipping to him but his shipping to me. They arrived in a gel form like melted. I ship everything in double bags and I take almost all the air out of the bag and then twist the top of the bag and tie it off with either a rubber band or twist knot with tie. I use foam padding and dont do much shipping in the winter because of the problems with the cold weather. I pad sometimes with foam peanuts if its loose at all. I would like for you to make a correction on this post. me and MDeth were almost closed on a trade and this is just uncalled for. period.

Hey vertigo next time tie the bag in a knot because the twist thing is makes the bag prone to leaking

Eh, depends how well you rubberband
I don't think mine leaked did it Mark ?

Thanks ReeFur, I will do! Thanks

oh and vertigo get rid of the sandwich bags and get some other bags go to you nearest lfs and ask them for bags they bag fish with those will do..

I have to agree, I do need some new supplies but I used the best thing I had handy, they were name brand! and I did double them but I do agree. Tomorrow is a new day and I am getting fresh supplies, I have alot of up coming frags that I will be trading, not selling! Thanks guys for the advise!

Let me know and I will be happy to do another trade with you

Sigh, I know I am SO gonna regret asking this, but what fiasco did I miss this time???

Hey Weetabix7, nothing. Just clearing up that deal that I had a problem with back with Nray203 back in the winter when he shipped out some trashy zoos, I am sure that you remember! We had you to be the middle lady on that one to make sure that everything went ok! TY again for that!

Hey vertigo, I don't feel like PMing you again...but make sure to use a part of an extra fish bag, and wrap the candycane in it. This way it doesn't get all irritated...

Heh, that's funny. I think that's the candycane that originally came from my tank.

[quote name='Weetabix7' date='Jun 30 2007, 10:47 PM' post='1201280']
Heh, that's funny. I think that's the candycane that originally came from my tank.
[/quote
It was man that thing colored up so nice! And has grown SO much!

Thanks for the sticky Adin!!!

Oops sorry vertigo--I was mistaken.

You are a great person to transact with.

On with shipping talk--less bantering about someone killing coral with sandwich bags!!!