Shipping fish between provinces

Hey guys,

I'll be moving from CPT to Grahamstown later this year. I have a small number of fish I need to decide whether or not I should look at giving away to good homes or if shipping over a 10hr drive is viable.

I have seen posts on TASA about services that can do this, and was wondering about costs to ship 5 fish and a few cherry shrimp, and any extra things I may need to take care of (live fish inter-province transport permit perhaps?).

I've successfully transported wild non-tropical marine fish on 9hr drives before (research-related), and my own fish on 1-2hr drives in previous moves, but the 10+hr drive with tropicals has me worried. Oxygen isn't a problem as I can use battery powered pumps, but temperatures may be more difficult to deal with. Then again it will be during summer, so maybe nothing to worry about...

Anyone done this before or knows of an affordable service to get this done?

 

I think fish in buckets in cool boxes should be good! Or just a straight cool box? With good insulation I'm sure a 10 hour drive will be okay. Some prime to neutralize ammonia would be helpful too

 

Thanks Hendre, I'm probably overthinking it. I doubt the temps would drop to dangerous levels if I insulate things well. Good call on the Prime, will have that on hand.

 

Temperatures shouldn't be too much of an issue.
Get yourself some polystyrene boxes from Westpack or similar.
Drill as small 4mm hole in the lid for airline tubing, and use either a battery powered pump or a 12V pump via your vehicle battery.
The polystyrene box will keep the temperature more or less stable for the time the fish are in transit.
Use packaging tape (the brown stuff that never comes off again) to seal the polystyrene cooler.

 

That's quite the move, but doable for the fish. What @Hendre has mentioned is quite good. Cooler boxes, or polystyrene boxes that you may be able to haggle from your LFS, will do the trick.

A tip - as a former Grahamstonian - don't trust the water. At the moment there is a huge water supply crisis in the town, and even when it is flowing, it is filled with some particularly nasty stuff. I only met a handful of people who would drink from the taps...

Are you moving there for academic purposes?

 

Great - this is pretty much what I've done on previous moves, just with non-tropicals. Down to the hole in the lid

Thanks, good to hear it gets done like that. I do have large bags and with so few fish to move I can do one per bag.

Yup, academic purposes. Working in freshwater ecology. The Grahamstown water is a concern, though I have contacts who collect rainwater and keep fish successfully there. Being from CPT, our water is drinkable but in short supply too, so that's fun... I generally keep my tanks under-stocked and as well planted as possible, but of course I will need to make a plan to secure a water supply.

Thanks everyone for inputs!

 

Ooh another ecology buff! We should totally make a club, even though I must still finish school

Maybe remineralised RO would be good too.

 

I'll probably end up taking as much water with as I can - the movers will take everything except the fish stuff, we've got 2 cars to dedicate to fish and their equipment, so some extra water shouldn't be an issue to tide me over while I organise a solution

 

@Nirv, agree with what has been said

All our fish being shipped to SA from Asia are often on almost 18 hours flights
Bagged and then in polystyrene boxes
What I have seen be done, especially with more sensitive fish, is a little bag of Ammonia guard or perhaps zeolite in the bag with the fish( looks almost like Matrix)

So that is another option you can consider as a precaution

Good luck with the move

 

Hi everyone,

We've completed the move successfully! Everyone seems to be settled

 

Absolutely awesome @Nirv

Glad all went well and they all ok.. I can imagine how stressful this must have been!!

 

Hello @Nirv. I am glad your fish made it home safe and healthy. Hope they are settling in very well for you. Hope they are happy in their new waterparameters. Enjoy keeping fish. It is definitly the best hobby out there for me and for maybe some other poeple too.

 

Thanks all. A strange mix of very few fish, but am hoping to expand a bit once I'm settled used to have 4 tanks and was breeding fish back in high school, want at least some of that again!