Help moving fish from Texas to FL. / Ideas please

[kingwoodmarcia]

I have a lot of fish from 2 inches to 14 inches, fish count around 30.
So far I was planning to spread them out over 4 to 5, 125 gallon poly plastic water storage tanks. Each tank having one of the 12-14 inch fish. I want to make sure the fish have plenty of O2. First option was to run 2 airlines from the standard air pumps into each tank. However, I came across these aerator pumps. Is this going to be to much air? Will this stress out the fish with all the bubbles?
Also, what are the thoughts about using live bail aerator, for fish transportation?
http://www.keepalive.net/guide.htm
Any ideas, please comment.
Thank you,
Stu

[SoLiD]

Look here too.

http://www.plastic-mart.com/class.php?cat=28

[kkiel02]

Will these be driven to florida? I would be more worried about temperature than oxygen. Remember our fish come from all over the place in little bags kept closed for a long time.

[Mike]

+1 on the temp concern. Probably not too cold, given your destination and time of year, but too warm needs to be considered. Many hours sealed up in the back of a truck or moving van with the sun beating down would probably heat up the water.

You might PM Marcus (tigereyed1) as he made the trip coming here from FL and might be able to give you some tips.

Good luck with the move.

[hobogato]

i believe marcus had his livestock shipped to him by a fish store in florida after he got here. that might be the way to go, even though it wont be cheap.

[Scream311]

+1 on the Marcus Suggestion. I was goin to mention that as well. I know that he used a special made crate he built to house his tank during transport in a cargo truck. However as for livestock I believe he had an LFS send them to him overnite (but I may be mistaken) also don't think any of his livestock was close to the size as yours.

If no luck you could always post them for sell on maast ;-)

[StevenSeas]

Here are some notes I took in my aquaculture, biology of fishes, and fish disease classes. Now keep in mind that these are what they use when transporting huge quantities of fish that arent quite as sensitive as our fish. However, the basic principles are the same:


It is best to handle fish in cooler water because:
Fish have a lower metabloic rate
they are less active
have a lower oxygen demand
and water has a greater DO carrying capacity
Minimize temperature differential
thermal shock can occur if temp diff. is 5*F degrees or more
change water temp less than 5*F in 20 min increments by mixing the water from the 2 sources.
Generally its better to move fish from higher to lower temp
(so getting them out of your tank to a cooler storage tank would be safer and easier than putting them into the new tank
Maintain good water quality in the transport water
Dont feed for 48-72 hrs before hauling
Provied High dissolved oxygen by
Compressed air (or a air pump with lots of air stones)
Agitator - these are the best option.
Minimize metabolites (ammonia and CO2) by reducing their activity and stress
most (9-10x the amount) of ammonia produced is via respriration at the gills vs urea, so that means that keep them less stressed so they dont breath as hard and you have less ammonia build up.
Mitigate ammonia build up by using zeolite or other "ammonia sponges"
Mitigating CO2 build up is the same as increasing DO by aerating the water
Loading density for "tropical" and ornamental fish is .4 lb fish per gallon


If you have questions on any of it or anything else I can dig through last semesters notes, we had a whole lecture on it.

As far as the agitator/aspirator that you listed I would say dont go with it because it makes "micro" bubbles. I would use a ph like a maxijet 900 or 1200 and use the aspirator and also use an air pump and air stones as a fail safe

[tiger_eyed1]

Yes, I had my fish shipped to me by my LFS.

I was able to move into my house, get my tank setup & cycled before they shipped me the fish and corals. Unless you have a portable chiller that'll exhaust outside the back of the moving truck & YOU are driving straight to the new house/home, I’d ship the fish. I would also think the splashing of the water and the constant vibrations from the road. Candles melted in the back of the moving truck when they delivered my furniture from Ft Lauderdale. So, if you are using a moving company, I would say no, do not put your fish in the back of their truck. Unless you are paying for an overnight door to door service, it will be several days/weeks before they get there.

Now, shipping my fish & corals cost me around $300. That was a 1/4th of what it would have cost me to buy new livestock. In my book, worth it b/c I knew my stock was healthy and options are somewhat limited here.

So how much do you value your fish? If you lose a few in transport, will you be upset with yourself? If you sell the fish here and buy new ones there, will that remove stress from your move?

I see via another post that you are moving to Tampa. They have a HUGE S/W fish market and following. They have a nice club there. Many of the online retailers are based in Florida and offer free shipping in state so that’s another option. You won’t have a problem with stocking your tank.

Get in touch with club now, Join their club, get on their board and ask for advice on moving to town. Ask someone to hold your fish, somewone to seed some of your rock, someone to make up some saltwater... Wait you are moving to Tampa :) You can get filtered ocean water +++. The club members and LFS down there could build your sump so you won’t have to transport in from here. I’m sure they’ll open their resources to assist.

Marcus

[Scream311]

Dang Marcus now I for sure wanna move to FLORIDA ! You make it seem so easy.

My crazy ideas id end up using the ocean as my sump ! ! !

[kingwoodmarcia]

Thanks for all of the replies. I am moving to Tampa, Fl. Yes, putting them in the back of a U-Haul, I think the water would get to hot. I will be moving at the end of May. I think what I am going to do now, is divide the fish into small containers vs. 3-4 large storage containers. I think the big tangs, (12 inch Naso, 12 inch unicorn tang, and more), would be less stressed in lets say ... 10 gal container by itself, vs. 125 gal storage tank with 15 other fish. I would just have to run more air lines to all the containers. With that said, it would cut down on the amount of water needed and weight to be hauled.


I would say I have around $5000.00 worth of fish. Most of my fish are so big; you can't get them that size, not even close. I LOVE big fish. My Passer Angel is around 15 inches. I have a Zebra eel close to 5ft and over 2 inches wide in the middle. Yes, I know that I may lose one or all of my fish, but that's the game were in. What helps in the move, is I will get reimbursed for most of it. I looked at renting a minivan, it would cost around $400.00, plus gas. That would be much less than shipping all my fish. I was also told to use some AmQuel in each container to help out in water quality and lesson the stress on the fish.


So, does this sound like a better plan? I was looking at using the Rubbermaid tough plastic totes to house the fish and run an airline to each container.


Thank you all for your help. I can not say thank you enough.

[Gseclipse02]

were in tampa are you moving to ?

[MRSBIGBIRD123]

If you are transporting them in the air conditioned mini van in containers, I would not have a problem. We did the same when we moved from Mississippi back to Texas. We used a van with a/c and had the fish in containers with air pumps ran by an inverter. ALL fish survived and we had SW and FW. We had some FW Fancy Goldfish that we near 12" long and 2 Lionfish 12"+. I would have no problem recommending this way as the best way to transport the fish. Hope the move goes well for you, sorry you are having to leave the best place in the world.

[kingwoodmarcia]

Thanks Cheri. It gives me great hope.

Where in Tampa, I am still looking. I was also looking at Clearwater or St Petersburg. I will be working at MacDill AFB.

[Gseclipse02]

i stayed in westchase it was a nice place in 07 about 30-45 mins from macdill or try south tampa near the mall ....