Best Shipping Procedures

[mystery_reef]

Originally Posted by buy_baff

How do you go about shiping through fedx? I went in to fedx and asked them if i could ship coral through them and the lady said they only ship live stuff for pet stores. I explained to her how that was not true because i had received shipments from private sellers before. She pulled out a rule book and showed me. So do you just not tell them what's in the box?

]

exactly, just tell them where you want the box to go and how.

[woofu]

im going to be shipping a expensive coral and its really cold out. its averaging 10 degrees at night. so i decided to do a practice run.i got a 3/4 inch line styrofoam box, packed with peanuts and added heat pack and adde a triple bagged of saltwater... starting temp was 78.6... i waited 30 min to add heat pack so it would get up to average temp which was about 120 degrees.. i let sit inside for about a half hour then i placed outside in my car overnight for approx. 6.5 to 7 hours.. the water temp was 52 degrees.. i dont think that a coral would have made that trip. any suggestions... i was thinking adding that box to a larger cooler then putting heat packs in that cooler.. but how long does it actually stay in the cold... its only being shipped about a 150 miles... i fell better if they would meet half way.... please help.. or maybe i should havehim wait till it gets a little warmer

[mikejones]

I don't know if this is the right place to post this, but here I go...
So Im buying a few corals from some one in Florida 34293
and he told me to find out the shipping cost to California 93030,
not sure of the weight, but its gonna be 5 zoas frags.
I want to figure out how much is it from the following,
UPSP priority and overnight thru fed ex/ups.
How do I go about this? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks
mike

[1DeR9_3Hy]

www.usps.com for the priority, although if he can fit it in a flat rate priority box it should only be $14 (not guaranteed for 3 day delivery though...it could take 4-5).

And fedex is here:

http://www.fedex.com/ratefinder/home?cc=US&language=en

[1DeR9_3Hy]

Originally Posted by Reefdiver72

The only difference I see is most aquariums fly there corals by plane so they could only be dry rapped for a few hours where fedex and ups is almost 24 hrs or longer.

If you have ever dealt with airline freight you would know that it is almost never under 12 hours for anything.

I remember Florida farmers would start packing there shipments Sunday night at around midnight, finish around 4-5 am, drive the boxes to the air port and get them there by 6-8 am, get them on a flight by 10am-12pm, land them anywhere from 3pm to 6pm, then wait for the air lines union to get them to your truck for pick up which can take 20 minutes to 2 hours depending on there mood.

By the time you get them back to acclimate them, its almost been 24 hours since they were boxed up. And thats assuming there are no delays, work stoppages, traffic accidents, ect...which does happen more than you would think.

[Chiefsurfer]

^that does depend on the airport.

I got my LR from TBSaltwater and shipped airline freight. To newark took 17 hours from door to door. To philly(2nd shipment) took 8 hours door to door. Both airports are the same distance and time from my house.

I read pgs 1 and 2, did not see notice of this, so I will add just for **** and giggles. I assume everyone insures their livestock while shipping. UPS and FedEx charge per $100. So if someone spends $150, insure the package for 150, or 200, it costs the same. Insure it for $200, and they lose/delay the package, make a profit.

Also, I know it was discussed on pages 1 and 2, although I did not see anyone give a definite answer about how they got good pricing on packages. The freight companies(ups and fedex and whoever else) give out GREAT deals if you send xxxxxx packages. My friend used to work for a shipping company, and he would tell me the inside scoop. If you wanted to send a UPS NDA envelope(like 12x10 for paper) and you go to a UPS store, it would cost you roughly $21. A company that sends out 10,000 of these packages a week(like a billing company, or a staples, or omething like that) pays $1.26 EACH!!!!(that is a UPS figure) and thats anywhere in continental US. I bet that's how people do it. Lastly, people said they "lied" on the weight and size of their package. FEDEX may reweigh, but 9x out of 10 with UPS, if it is off by a bit(3-5 lbs, or a few inches any direction) the ups guy can enter whatever weight he wants, or re-weighs it as in the truck. It is his discretion from what I understand.

[cutnup]

I need new bulbs and 8 54 wat T5's aren't cheap! I was thinking about puttiing a frag pack up for sale to offset the costs. I have some specimen cups that are 4 1/2 oz. I was thinking about using these instead of bags. So the bag doesnt leak or explode. I think they would be fine for zoas or lps. The only problem I see was with sps. I think that them rattling around in the plastic container would break them. So basically I have 2 questions.

1. Is 4 1/2 oz. enough?
2. How could I secure the sps so they dont rattle around and break?

Thanks!

[x2uranium]

Just goto uline.com and order some 3 or 4 mil plastic bags, I think i ended up getting 1000 for $9.00 something. save your time and if your shipping up north you going to want to have 4 mil bags with heat pack, so they dont get cold.

[youngreef180]

Originally Posted by x2uranium

Just goto uline.com and order some 3 or 4 mil plastic bags, I think i ended up getting 1000 for $9.00 something. save your time and if your shipping up north you going to want to have 4 mil bags with heat pack, so they dont get cold.

Does anyone know where or if you can pick up similar bags local like at a hardware store or something?

[Joshsmit56001]

I know people have said not to cut up insulation to make your own styro boxes, but what if you glued all the edges so they were air tight? It is just so much cheaper to make your own.

[Reefski's]

check out this thread for some great info. making your own is NOT the way to go.
http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic95...ping+styrofoam

and how much work would it take to glue the edges. Uline sell all sizes and they aren't that expensive.

also damp is the preferred method for most corals. see the thread above.

Carl

[Jay Fortay]

I am sending out a package tomorrow from Gainesville, FL where the high temp on monday will be 94 and the low will be 72, to Charleston, SC where the high temp on tuesday will be 91 and the low temp will be 67. The buyer works for USPS and insists that she will get it next day if I ship it express. It will also be delivered to the USPS facility where she works. I have a bunch of styro that I used to line the small box with. The pieces that I am sending are not frags, they are on rocks about 5"x7" I got some good thick bags from the LFS. I was wondering weather or not to use an ice pack or not? I know that it will get hot enough to need one during the day, but it may get to chilly at night for one. What do you think?

[renogaw]

any clue on how to ship live sand?

[ukguy]

would you use heat packs to ship Chaeto via USPS priority mail? Temp in Columbus is 23 to 15F overnight. I think Chaeto is very hardy, But I've never tested it at 25F or below for 48 hours.

I've been shipping Chaeto doublebagged in a quart bag, (with 1 cup of water) wrapped in newspaper/bubblewrap, in a Small USPS Priority shipping box.

[Turbovr3six]

Whats the best way to ship a fish?

[RonMidtownStomp]

Has anyone used or received packages lined with "Arctic Foil?" There is temperature data online for shipping things that are frozen with them, but all of the shipments of coral I've received use Styrofoam lined boxes. I'm thinking that arctic foil and peanuts might be much more efficient and cheaper to ship due to smaller boxes. Anyone have experience with this?

Thanks,
Ron

[geo]

This thread has been moved to the current forum....

[shrimphead]

got 2 questions

do any of you that frequently ship corals every come across people that pretend that their order all died so they can either get their order for free or get 2 orders for the price of 1?

In terms of shipping fish i've seen one company that claims they ship their fish with a bit of that stress coating stuff. anyone else heard/do this?

[Reefski's]

yes, Chloram-X works great for shipping to bind ammonia.

[shrimphead]

Originally Posted by Reefski's

yes, Chloram-X works great for shipping to bind ammonia.

no i'm talking about that stuff that promotes/gives your fishes a slime coat?

[BluespotLady]

PRIME detoxifies ammonia and provides a slime coat.

[RonMidtownStomp]

Originally Posted by shrimphead

do any of you that frequently ship corals every come across people that pretend that their order all died so they can either get their order for free or get 2 orders for the price of 1?

In about 10 shipments, I've never had that problem. I had one coral die in shipping (of maybe 100 shipped) and I refunded the amount of that coral.

[organism]

Originally Posted by shrimphead

got 2 questions

do any of you that frequently ship corals every come across people that pretend that their order all died so they can either get their order for free or get 2 orders for the price of 1?

Absolutely, and it was the main reason I got out of selling corals. Always, always ask for clear pictures of any DOA corals before just to make sure. If someone got me pics within 24 hours of it arriving then it's all good. If it survived 24 hours it's user error after that.

A solid 50%+ of DOA claims wouldn't provide pictures, some sent blurry pics of stuff that was very much alive, and all of them got really aggressive about why they'd need to send pics ie "everyone who knows me knows I'm trustworthy". Yeah, well, I don't know you dude and you sound like a shady scammer to me. The other 50% were great people who sent pics and I was more than happy to help them be fully satisfied with their order.

In terms of shipping fish i've seen one company that claims they ship their fish with a bit of that stress coating stuff. anyone else heard/do this?

There's quite a few companies that do it and I've seen it in a lot of imports as well. Seems to work but I don't know too much about shipping fish to be honest.

[organism]

Originally Posted by RonMidtownStomp

Has anyone used or received packages lined with "Arctic Foil?" There is temperature data online for shipping things that are frozen with them, but all of the shipments of coral I've received use Styrofoam lined boxes. I'm thinking that arctic foil and peanuts might be much more efficient and cheaper to ship due to smaller boxes. Anyone have experience with this?

Thanks,
Ron

I was at Fraggle Reef the other day picking up some salt and they were using these, got an order from Coral Morphologic with the same, it's fantastic stuff. imo works better than styrofoam and a lot less fragile. And cheaper! Very cool

[freetareef]

has anyone ever shipped like this? it sounds like hands down the ONLY way sps should be shipped...

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-11/eb/index.php