Shipping Discus.

[Waldo]

Hello peeps. I'm a newbie here but I've been in the hobby some time. I thought a discus forum would be a great place to ask this question as all research has lead to dead ends.

First off I am an exporter of Peruvian/Brazilian fish. I've been interested in discus and I prefer wild caught fish over domestic. Because of freight being so costly I figured I would just wait until I had adiquite facilities to maintain a larger group for stock.

I got back from interzoo last week where I had an interesting discussion with some OFI members on shipping angels and discus. It goes like this...,

In the wild discus and angels during the dry season are triggered into a sort of hybernation by lower water levels. By simply lowering the water in the tank the fish uses less oxygen and holds waist inside it's body to prepair for what might soon become a dry pool. By shipping discus in water deep enough to cover the width of the fish you are triggering the same thing as in the wild. Any one want to confirm this?

Thanks Waldo

[Merrilyn]

Hello Waldo, welcome to the forum.

That's a avery interesting theory. I still think the time they could be held in plastic bags would be limited. I have shipped and received quite a number of discus and angels. When shipping by air, the biggest cost factor is the weight, so naturally all the shippers use the minimum of water. As you say, just enough to cover the dorsal fin. Large discus need to be bagged individually to prevent damage to each other, so the cost will always be high. I also starve my fish for 24 hours before shipping, so that the waste eliminated in the bag will be minimal.

Not sure about the fish holding the waste inside. I do believe this would cause a lot of problems with toxic buildup within the fish. The fish may well cut down on the food it consumes in the wild, which would naturally reduce the waste produced.

In a smaller pool, with the temperature rising, there would be less available oxygen in the water, so stands to reason the fish would go into a state of semi-hybernation.

I wouldn't like to try that with shipping fish in bags. I always fill my bags with medical grade oxygen before shipping the fish, and so far, have had no casualties.

HTH

[Proteus]

Interesting, I would like to hear more on this

[Waldo]

Well as of right now the flight from Lima Peru to Seattle WA is about 20 hours. Add 6 hours for packing and unpacking so were not talking about much more then a normal shipment. As of now we ship with O^2 injected bags, fish are fasted 3 days before shipment. 75% of fish are individually bagged ~ neons... no~. We've focused a lot on the ammonia toxicity in bags and here's what we've found about acclimating.

(If you just want to do it without knowing why it works the here's how it's done. To prepare lower your tank temp to lower 70's. When you get the box in, cut the bag open and squirt some Amquel and Prime into the bags. Remove the fish and put them directly into the tank without acclimating.

Ammonia can be measured in two ways amount and toxicity.

Those test strips measure the amount of ALL ammonia.

Toxicity refers to the amount of un-ionized ammonia (un-ionized is a less stable molecule and is more likely to bond to something or change into something else to fill it's electrons)

When is ammonia un-ionized? It's a direct correlation between the temperature and pH. If you would like to read more into it then you can google ammonia toxicity, and read up on website's. http://www.thekrib.com/Chemistry/ammonia-toxicity.html



Table 1. Un-ionized NH3 as a percent of total ammonia (by temperature and pH).
Percent NH3 of total ammonia
Temp (F) pH 6.5 pH 7.0 pH 7.5 pH 8.0 pH 8.5
68 .13 .40 1.24 8.82 11.2
77 .18 .57 1.77 5.38 15.3
82 .22 .70 2.17 6.56 18.2
86 .26 .80 2.48 7.46 20.3


Lets go through the stages of the fish shipment. First the fish are already in a 7.2 pH (our water) as the fish breaths and poops, it releases CO^2. If you've ever dealt with a planted tank and CO^2 you will know that it will lower the pH. You can assume that the fish are now in a pH of < 7.0. Also during shipment the temp drops to around 68 F, which is cold but will not harm any of the fish; this brings the toxicity to lower levels with the same amount of ammonia.
When the fish arrive and you open the bags the first thing to happen is gas exchange and temperature rising. CO^2 is exchanged for N^2 and O^2 gasses. This in turns raises the pH back to its normal state around 7.2. If you add water (Drip and Float Method) to dilute the ammonia you are "raising the temperature" making the ammonia more lethal.

pH and temperature change can be more tolerated. Most fish are tolerable of a jump 10F warmer and 5F cooler. pH change will effect your fish for the next week regardless if it's drip or squirt dump..... Quite pointless unless it's more then 2 points, in which case I would squirt poor a cup into the bag and then put the fish into the tank. This is replicated by the rainy season in the Amazon where temp, dH, DO, and pH all fluctuate rapidly.

The chemicals in Prime and Amquel (As well as all other ammonia chemicals) are not ammonia removers. They are ammonia detoxifies. They were not intended for household tanks but are often sold that way. They were originally made for the purpose of importing wild fish that were vulnerable to ammo burn like Apistogramma and tetra.