Shipping my ocellaris

[LockeOak]

Hello everyone, I moved a couple of months ago and a friendly local reefer has been keeping my livestock for me. I have my tank re-established in my new place and it's ready for all the critters which will be overnighted to me next week, including my ~2.5 year old ocellaris pair. It will be a large styrofoam crate, 20-30 coral frags, a small cleanup crew and the two clowns. Are there any specific actions that I should make sure are done? I know that they should be double bagged with 1/3 water to 2/3 air. They're being shipped from RI to GA, the expected temperature is probably room temperature at the facility, whatever the temperature is on the plane (probably cold) and into the mid 70's once they're on the ground in GA, up into the low 80's if they don't make it til noon.

So... should heat packs be used?
Ship them together or in two separate bags?
Any preferred carrier (leaning towards FedEx at the moment)?

Anything else I should be aware of? Thanks!

 

[muerk1]

You should be fine shipping all that without heat packs. The best thing you can do is bag all of the corals and the fish separately. This is so if one coral or fish would die, it wouldn't cause everything to die from the ammonia. Its like the old saying, "don't put all your eggs in one basket." You definitely want to double bag the fish, and with the corals, wrap the coral loosely with one bag(not in the bag), and then double bag that with 1/3 water and 2/3 air. You will also want to get pure oxygen into the bag, some lfs might let you use their oxygen tank. Fedex should be fine to use, but it can be expensive. Good luck

 

[Doni]

Definately bag each coral/fish separately. You also have the option of using kordon breathable bags. It takes less water, small bag and no air is needed. Be sure to separate the bags using cardboard (never let the bags tough one another) so they 'breathe' properly. More info can be found here: http://www.novalek.com/kordon/articles/breathing_bags.html