Kordon Breathing Bag experimenting

[chorrylan]

hi folks,

I have been curious for some time about the practicality and effectiveness of Kordon Breathing bags.

http://www.novalek.com/kordon/breathing_bags/index.htm

These are bags made from very thin ethylene through which oxygen and carbon dioxide can diffuse.

My inerest in this is that it would potentially save me needing to muck around with oxygenation and allows more water to be put in the bags which in turn helps for temperature stability and reduced risk of ammonia buildup.

Anyway... 'cos snooping the net provided rather inconclusive info and 'cos I'm the kind of person that doesn't learn that well from other people mistakes and brainwaves; I bought a pile of the bags (had to take a gamble and obtain fair numbers to get unit costs to something I could consider using) and have checked them out a bit and thought I'd post up my findings and thought so far.

My initial reaction was "blimey they're thin... you couldn't possibly put somethign spiky like a frontosa in there". I still don't think I'd be brave enough to send fronties in one but am warming to the idea of using them for other fish.

Despite their "thinness" they bags aren't pressurised with oxygen/air and they ethylene is soft enough that when I intentionally poked a hole in one the leak effectively close itself after about a minute and ceased to leak water.

The more interesting experiment (the one that prompted this post) was getting three adult male Cyprochromis leptosoma malasa and putting them in a 7"x12" bag, filled with water and a few drops of prime.

The poor canaries then sat in my fishroom for the next 64 hours with me checking on them every 12 hours or so.

The end result was they came through perfectly, when I took them out of the bag and put them into a tank they were displaying to each other within about 30 seconds.

I find that pretty impressive although I have to admit I wasn't brave enough to conduct a matching experiment using an ordinary bag to see how well they coped but they and the water were in much better condition than I expect to find fish I've buy at the nswcs auctions after less than 24 hours in the bags.

I intend to start using these bags for more if not most of my fish sales and auctions as on top of the fish appearing to be happier they pack so much more neatly than a big bag of air and water (I struggle to fit 6 lots in a box for auctions let alone 8 so not having to allow for air means the fish get much more water to swim in yet take up considerably less space)

I took some photos of the canaries in their bag after the 64 hours for those that have plastic bag fetishes :-)

The colour the lepto males are still showing after being in a 7"x12" bag for 64 hours is in my opinion a pretty good testament to how well they coped.

Downsides:

- the bags are relatively expensive, eg including postage they work out around 30 cents a bag whereas the ones I'd use as alternatives are maybe 10 to 15 cents each (but 20 cents extra to reduce the re-conditioning time for fish after transport by a week or two makes that a saving as far as I'm concerned)

- potentially leaky and susceptible to spiking due to the thin wall thickness. I intend to conduct the next experiment with a spikey old bristlenose and perhaps somethign big and boisterous like and an adult male electric blue or blue dolphin to see how serious this is in reality (though in a 11"x19" bag not the 7"x12 ones). I have a suspicion it mightn't be as bad as I initially feared. The manufacturer suggest double bagging as an option in such cases which I might try also.

- floppy. This was a bit unexpected; basically the bags are not capable of self-standing due to the thin walls, stretch/floppiness of the thylene and because the bags don't actually have a flat/square base. For air freighting and long trips this will probably not be a problem as they bags are best used in a poly box with lots of newspaper under and around them to ensure air flow. The newspaper in turn should hold the bags nicely in place. What could be more difficult is in an auction environment if the auction-nazis want to reshuffle the lots between boxes as then they would end up gettign squished to the bottom of boxes underneath all the polyethylene bags and if sufficiently covered with plastic bags might run out of air themselves. I can almost see the gleam in Kevins eyes as I toddle up to the auction inspection table with a limp looking kordon bag too (but he looks like that no matter what sort of bag I turn up with so it's hardly a fair test). If I (and/or any others) start to use such bags in auctions it might require some education of the auction-lot handlers first. It'd be nice if novalek made a square-bototm verison of the bag too but I gather people have been begging for that for some years with no effect.

Upsides:

- the fish seem to survive much better in such a bag than any standard bags I can manage

- and can pack much more neatly/effeciently into a standard box as I don't have to use huge bags largely full of air

- and the increased volume of water in the bag reduces the risk of ammonia buildup due to greater dilution

I don't want to sound like an advertisement but from what I've worked out so far these look like (for me and my purposes at least) a winner.

[Josh]

Good stuff laurie.

the club down here was talking about these bags a while back and was going to try and get some.

It say's that there should be as little as possible air inside the bag. I wounder how they would go at the NSWCS auctions. I had a read about them on the net and seam to be a good thing.

They aren't all that cheap either, but properly wortht he extra expensive in the long run

Josh

[chorrylan]

the club down here was talking about these bags a while back and was going to try and get some.

It say's that there should be as little as possible air inside the bag. I wounder how they would go at the NSWCS auctions. I had a read about them on the net and seam to be a good thing.

They aren't all that cheap either, but properly wortht he extra expensive in the long run

Josh

hi Josh,

if you (or other club members down at the gong) want to test some out I can bring some up tomorrow (just get in contact before 10:00am tomorrow or it'll be too late). They're be horridly expensive to buy in small numbers from overseas just to experiment with.

yes you're supposed to have as little air as possible; that airgap in the photo is partially because I left a small gap but mostly because I didn't fill it tightly with water and the air diffused into the bag ove the 64 hours.

At around 30 cents for the 7"x12" and 50 cents for the 11"x19" bags they're expensive but not horrificly so when you compare it the value of the fish and just in the context of being responsible for wellbeing of the fish in our care.

I'd love to get someone interested in importing/distributing these here as the cost is artifically inflated. eg most places just retail play quantities like 25 bags at a time whereas novalek themselves sell commercial quantities but have completely lost the plot when it comes to international sales (I got a quote for 3 boxes and their shipping charge would have been US$459 just to the Sydney airport and another US$430 to get them to my place making them much more expensive than buying the play lots)

[Euan Edwards]

The other thing to be careful with is that the bags are not packed side by side i.e. don't fill a box with them. I found the best thing was to pack them in socks which allows them to breath. I tried packing them like bottles with dividers between them but that was too much hassle.

If you overfil them then band them up they stand better because of the water pressure.

Don't you love the feel of them

[akroyd]

I've experimented with hundreds of these bags. If not overcrowded, I've had fish live for a month, although I also used some chlormon, buffers and anaesthetic.

The techniques for successful packing are a new learning curve. I found that using a heat sealer was better than banding, less water is better and you should have no air at all. Allowing circulation around the bags in the box is a trick too.

I know what you mean Euan, I played with the first ones I filled as well.

[oz_gooner]

the club down here was talking about these bags a while back and was going to try and get some.

It say's that there should be as little as possible air inside the bag. I wounder how they would go at the NSWCS auctions. I had a read about them on the net and seam to be a good thing.

They aren't all that cheap either, but properly wortht he extra expensive in the long run

Josh

hi Josh,

if you (or other club members down at the gong) want to test some out I can bring some up tomorrow (just get in contact before 10:00am tomorrow or it'll be too late). They're be horridly expensive to buy in small numbers from overseas just to experiment with.

yes you're supposed to have as little air as possible; that airgap in the photo is partially because I left a small gap but mostly because I didn't fill it tightly with water and the air diffused into the bag ove the 64 hours.

At around 30 cents for the 7"x12" and 50 cents for the 11"x19" bags they're expensive but not horrificly so when you compare it the value of the fish and just in the context of being responsible for wellbeing of the fish in our care.

I'd love to get someone interested in importing/distributing these here as the cost is artifically inflated. eg most places just retail play quantities like 25 bags at a time whereas novalek themselves sell commercial quantities but have completely lost the plot when it comes to international sales (I got a quote for 3 boxes and their shipping charge would have been US$459 just to the Sydney airport and another US$430 to get them to my place making them much more expensive than buying the play lots)

$430us from Sydney to ACT!!! I hope they were going to be carried by 1000 vestial virgins clad in gold robes wth a rose petal covered pathway for that price! They must be nuts thinking that someone would pay that much for 3 boxes. 3 containers maybe but not boxes.

[chorrylan]

$430us from Sydney to ACT!!! I hope they were going to be carried by 1000 vestial virgins clad in gold robes wth a rose petal covered pathway for that price! They must be nuts thinking that someone would pay that much for 3 boxes. 3 containers maybe but not boxes.

hmm I didn't think of that possibility; I just assumed it would be a regular fat smelly courier. Doh!!!!

I used these for several L333 deliveries over the weekend and found them quite effective.

A band made with two sheets of newspaper rolled up and stuck with a piece of newspaper fits the 7"x12" bags perfectly and solves all my concerns about sitting stably and having good airflow around them.

That gives me a bag that fits the same quantity of (smallish) fish as what I would normally fit into a shipping sized bag but takes up much less room in the box and from the (albeit limited) testing I have done so far delivers the fish in better condition.

As to the feel... it was noticed by quite a few folk but somehow they're just not right. They're definately natural enough so perhaps it's just that they don't act and react the right way

[chorrylan]

Just an update to this topic; I recently ordered some other stuff in and topped up my supplies of these bags in the process so have some available for people interested in checking them out.

I have the 7.5" x 12" size available at $9 per 25 (working out at 36 cents each).

This is the bag size that is most useful from my perspective. It's the one used for the test mentioned above by keeping some leptosoma malasa in for several days and have used for delivering L333 catfish and mpimbwe leptosoma around the place.

The smaller ones at 5.5" x 8" are $7 for 25 (working out at 28 cents each).

Based on snooping around the 'net these actually appear to fairly commonly used but I felt them to be too small for the kinds of fish I wanted to send

(I guess I might get more confident over time but I prefer the fact the 7.5" x 12" bag gives the fish more water than they would in

a regular square-bottom bag yet takes up much less space in a box and seems to travel better.)

They would on the other hand be particularly interesting for fish that need to be (or you want to) ship in individual bags to limit stress and fighting.

I have bigger ones also at 11.5" x 19" at $14 for 25 (working out at 56 cents each).

This was the size that interested me at first and would probably be needed for larger/adult fish that need more room to move but I haven't worked out how to use them effectively as the fish I have that size also happen to be quite spiky.

The plastic/ethylene used for these bags is scarily thin and when you fill a bag this size up with water it's so heavy that I keep feeling it's going to burst or leak everywhere. Mind you so did the 7.5"x12" ones when I looked at them initially but they turned out to be quite stable and practical when held in a newspaper sleeve (I fold a few sheets of newspaper up and sticky tape them together making a sleeve that the bag fits into).

I need to do some experimenting using two of these bigger ones double-bagged and then sitting it in a newspaper-sleeve and picking something big and spiky like a adult male electric blue and see how they go .... or even better I could convince someone else to test with an adult frontosa :-)

Postage is a flat $6 for up to 500 grams which should fit any "reasonable" sized orders of these (I don't have sufficient stocks for orders orders bigger than that so don't ask :-)

When I first looked at these I thought the prices were prohibitive (I was quoted over $800 just to ship a few boxes of bags out here.. on top of the price of the bags!) but 36 cents a bag isn't too bad when put in the context of shipping several hundreds of dollars worth of fish and paying up to $100 in airfreight.

In practice they have turned out to brilliant... much easier for me and much better for the fish than I can achieve using conventional bags.

pm if you're interested

Laurie

[kilroy]

They sound very promising Laurie. Have you tried double bagging them yet? I assume that wouldn't affect the breathing abilities of the bags if the manufacturer suggested it?

Has Gerard picked up the packages yet?

[hookedonfish]

Hi Mate that's a unbeliveable price. There is a guy selling the small ones on plecofanatics for $1 for each bag...

This is a very good read so thanks for sharing your experiments.. Do you think they could be sent by regular post with fish in them. Like i mean in a closed box with no air..

Just thought i would ask..

Cheers

Aiden

[chorrylan]

Hi Mate that's a unbeliveable price. There is a guy selling the small ones on plecofanatics for $1 for each bag...

..

Do you think they could be sent by regular post with fish in them. Like i mean in a closed box with no air..

err yes the price is essentially just cost recovery; I'm not trying to run a business or anything silly.

That said: the price on plecofanatics is for the larger 11"x19" bag not the small ones.

In terms of sending fish via post etc: In theory yes the fish would be ok but I personally wouldn't send fish via regular post. A courier should be ok as long as you can strike up a good enough relation with them to ensure everyone in the chain is aware that it's live perishables they're carrying. (if you google around you'll find many of the people using these bags have chosen to do so because they want to send fish via regular courier transport rather than just sending to an airport.)

[YAL05T]

Curious to revive this thread and see if any more testing has been done, especially with the BN.

Also how do you go about using "chlormon, buffers and anaesthetic" with them?

[chorrylan]

hi,

I've continued to use them for juvenile L' catfish for which they seem very well suited.

Don't think I'd want to try an adult bristlenose in one due to the spikes.

I did try some juvenile and adult frontosa in them.

Adult sized fronties, particularly males, are just too darned spiky and they stress in any sized bags (these are relatively small by fronty standards).

Youngsters and juveniles up to 14-15cm seem to have no problems.

I haven't tried fancy stuff like anaesthetic. Everything gets a small dose of Seachem prime though. As these bags end up with quite a bit more water in them than the alternative "ordinary" bag options the ammonia gets diluted more and hence woudl take longer to reach toxic levels.

[akroyd]

Curious to revive this thread and see if any more testing has been done, especially with the BN.

Also how do you go about using "chlormon, buffers and anaesthetic" with them?

Hi,

I was using Chlormon at a high dose (5x recommended). I prefer it to Prime just because it's Australian made. I used it to detoxify ammonia as it was produced, because I needed the fish to be in the bag for about 3 weeks.

I made sure that a buffer was used to make sure that kH started at at least 100ppm. I was worried that organic acids produced would cause a pH crash. It was a bit of a balancing act because I didn't want to start with an extremely high pH as the ammonia would be more toxic. The buffer was just sodium bi-carbonate.

An anaesthetic was used to reduce the metabolic rate of the fish, so that I could add more fish to the bag, and so that the fish had reduced awareness and less stress. The best IMO is Aqui-S which gives recommended dose rates, though I'm sure you could get away with clove oil.

For fish that only spend a day or two in the bag, I think most of this is unnecessary.

HTH

[CThompson]

You’ve gone to a lot of trouble Laurie.

A few things that strike me;

The bags are made for fish transport yet they don’t have square corners. I imagine a fish can be caught in the corner folds and still suffocate if they can’t open and close their gills as they are clamped shut by plastic. Easily fixed by banding the corners, but it seems odd that bags so made for fish transport they have a drawing of a fish on them aren’t made with square bottoms.

And, if a polystyrene box of bagged fish were done up in these breathing bags, with the bags full to the top with water, a) airfreight will be really expensive and; b) a polystyrene box of fish will have the lid taped shut which will effectively quarantine the fish from air just as a normal fish bag will. A full box will have less access to air than a conventional box of bags done up with O2. I wonder about these bags ability to be used when fish come in from overseas. Polystyrene boxes also protect the fish from temperature fluctuations, so holes can't be put through their sides for breathing purposes on airplane journeys.

It’s easy to see that fish will be better off when being bagged by people who use these for NSWSC auctions, or by people transporting fish from point A to point B in the back of their cars.

BTW – your Leptosoma’s colours looked great.

[akroyd]

Hi Craig,

Air freight should be cheaper than with conventional bags because less boxes would be needed. If an individual box is heavier, it should contain more fish as the number of fish per litre of water should stay the same as with standard bags.

What seems like a very small amount of air within a poly box is more than adequate, as long as the bags are packed to allow some circulation. This is because air has about 210000ppm oxygen, and the fish water will only need about 5ppm.

[chorrylan]

The bags are made for fish transport yet they don’t have square corners. ...

yup and this I don't understand other than that I assume that with such thin plastic it's difficult for them to do anything fancy in terms of joining seams (though the plain seal at the bottom of the bag doesn't seem to be a concern in terms of bursting or leakage.

When I use these I make up a sleeve with newspaper that helps to stop them flopping about, ensures an air gap around them and co-incidentally (as I drop the bag into the sleeve from the top) folds the corners up.

if a polystyrene box of bagged fish were done up in these breathing bags, with the bags full to the top with water, a) airfreight will be really expensive and; b) a polystyrene box of fish will have the lid taped shut which will effectively quarantine the fish from air just as a normal fish bag will.

AAE charge you for the higheest of

a) the real weight, or

b) A volumetric/cubic weight calculation: Length(cm) * Width * Height /6000

this usually means paying for 10-13kg and (if using normal bags) putting less that 4kg of water and fish in them. With the kordon bags you can a heck of a lot of extra water (and extra bags) before you get anywhere near increasing the cost.

It’s easy to see that fish will be better off when being bagged by people who use these for NSWSC auctions, or by people transporting fish from point A to point B in the back of their cars.

I like these for person to person or person to lfs sales when there's any significant time or distance involved but don't think they're suited to auctions due to the extra handling they would have to endure.

[CThompson]

Laurie,

Thanks for the reply.

Do you agree with what akroyd has said about oxygen side of things in a closed box?

Craig

[chorrylan]

Do you agree with what akroyd has said about oxygen side of things in a closed box?

err lets see what did he say:

What seems like a very small amount of air within a poly box is more than adequate, as long as the bags are packed to allow some circulation. This is because air has about 210000ppm oxygen, and the fish water will only need about 5ppm.

er yep:

- atmospheric has approx 210,000 ppm of O2

- and fish need at least 5ppm of O2

The problem is getting a real idea of oxygen consumption by the fish.

Let's take some approximate assumptions..

- cichlids being imported from germany survive relatively well for up to 48 hours in approx 1L of water and 2.5L of oxygen

- and there's say 50-100g of fish in the bag but lets say 75.

- so they're surviving on about 3.2g of oxygen or about 65mg/hour

Most make it ok but some don't so assume that 65 mg/L/Hour at a density of 75g/L is pretty much as far as we'd want to push things so stocking at 3.2g of O2 per L of water (75g/fish) should be about right.

Using standard import-style bags you can achieve this by filling a bag with 1L of water, 75g of fish and 2.5L of O2), plus something to deal with the ammonia buildup, keep the temp to no more than 25C and they should be good for up to 48H.

So if you don't have O2.

- O2 makes up around 21% of air (at 25C) .... or 210,000 ppm as akroyd stated

- air weighs around 1.2g/L (at 25C)

- and there's about 0.25g of O2 per L of air

- so about 0.6g of O2 in 2.5L of air

and hence a bag with 1L of water, 75 g of fish and 2.5L of air should be good for a trip of 10 hours

and in practice we reduce the water volume and fish load to allow more air and a longer survival time.

Assuming it all scales nicely 50g of fish in 500ml of water and 3L of air shoudl be good for 24 hours which is essentially a big square bottom fish bag with 500-750ml of water, 50g of fish and filled to the absolute max with air.

Unfortunately having to limit the water volume to maximise air in the bag means there's less water to dilute ammonia which is toxic in it's own right as well as dropping the pH.

Now imagine you are using kordon fishbags instead of ordinary ones...

- an average fish box has about 65 litres internal volume

- so if I fill it with 8 x 1L bags I'd get say 55L of air.

- that 55L of air has approx 14g of O2 in it

- the 8 bags with 75g fish in each will use 65mg/hour of O2 each or 520mg collectively so the 55L of air should last for 26 or 27 hours easily and the fish have nearly twice the water volume to dilute the ammonia etc.

Add to that the fact that polystyrene boxes leak air (they're meant to hold water not air) and the fact that the kordon bags are not only letting oxygen in they're letting carbon dioxide out and you end up with much happier fish than even the simple arithmatic accounts for.

(the human respiratory system reacts much more to an increase in the level of Co2 in our systems than to the level of O2, so for instance diving recirculatory systems have to scrub the Co2 out of the gas stream rather than just topping up the O2 otherwise the body just keeps sucking in larger volumes... and I presume fish, particularly stressed fish, are reacting similarly to the increasing Co2 more than the decreasing O2)

[CThompson]

Gosh Laurie That's what I call an answer

Using standard import-style bags you can achieve this by filling a bag with 1L of water, 75g of fish and 2.5L of O2), plus something to deal with the ammonia buildup, keep the temp to no more than 25C and they should be good for up to 48H.

- the 8 bags with 75g fish in each will use 65mg/hour of O2 each or 520mg collectively so the 55L of air should last for 26 or 27 hours easily and the fish have nearly twice the water volume to dilute the ammonia etc.

To me it boils down to normal bag = 48H

Kordon bag = 27H

Even if the fish come in, in better shape after an equal 27 hour journey (Kordon bag Vs normal bag), if the Kordon bag is outlasted by the standard fish bag by 21 hours, with delays in air freight I think a shipper in Germany sending to Oz will still be better off with a standard fish bag.

Add to that the fact that polystyrene boxes leak air (they're meant to hold water not air)

I'd be surprised if a polystyrene box was air tight, but with the lid fully on, and taped shut as they are when transported, I can't see enough air getting in to support life. Perhaps a Kordon polystyrene box is required?

Craig

[chorrylan]

To me it boils down to normal bag = 48H

Kordon bag = 27H

*if* you're using oxygen that appears to be the case; combined with the brutality that a shipping bag can tolerate I don't see much temptation for someone doing international shipping to use the kordon ones.

My personal interest in them was based around less industrial situations as

a) I don't have oxygen readily available, and

b) some places I contemplate sending fish to don't have direct/efficient airfreight options available

but perhaps most importantly I often carry fish around for extended periods of time where normal (full sized) bags are inconvenient and inefficient. eg when making a trip up to the NSWCS mtgs if I add in side trips to LFS and visitations it used to be a real pain carrying fish. Often this meant I wouldn't bother bringing fish up or buying fish.

If I use a tub/bucket with airline they last ok but I can't carry many and requires rebagging to hand them on.

If I use ordinary bags they take up heaps of space in the car and they don't seem to have much margin in terms of survival capacity.

Using kordon bags I use much less space in the car yet the fish themselves have much more water and from observation travel much better (and because I'm not sealing the boxes there is never an issue about available oxygen in the boxes)

In practice the fish I carry to and from Sydney travel much better nowadays and settle in much better afterwards than the other options I have used over the years (standard bags and tubs).

Much better even than I can account for with my back-of-the-coaster calculations.

[CThompson]

Using kordon bags I use much less space in the car yet the fish themselves have much more water and from observation travel much better (and because I'm not sealing the boxes there is never an issue about available oxygen in the boxes)

Much better even than I can account for with my back-of-the-coaster calculations.

For some reason I feel that these may still be pretty good.

I aways stress-out when taking fish to shops. These Kroydon bags seem to be a stress relief for the fish and the driver.

[Damon]

Who has these available??? I will be moving approx 600km's in 3 weeks time and require about 25 medium to large bags.

I would love to get my hands on some.

Also, are these bags designed to be used with oxygen??

[chorrylan]

Who has these available??? I will be moving approx 600km's in 3 weeks time and require about 25 medium to large bags.

I would love to get my hands on some.

Also, are these bags designed to be used with oxygen??

No they're not designed foer use with oxygen in fact if you tried to use them with oxygen

a) the oxygen would simply disappear through the bag membrane (that's the point of the breathing bit), and

b) would probably burst when you tried to fill 'em (they're not designed to be pressurized)

I'd recommend larger quantities of smaller bags rather than larger bags, they just work better that way.

I have small quantities available from out of my own stock

The bag size that I find most useful is the 7.5" x 12" which I can do at $9 per 25 (working out at 36 cents each).

That's the one I tested with the leptos earlier int his thread and have used for delivering L333 catfish and mpimbwe leptosoma to Sydney.

I have smaller ones that are 5.5" x 8" at $7 for 25 (working out at 28 cents each).

Based on snooping around the 'net these actually appear to fairly commonly used but I felt them to be too small for the kinds of fish I wanted to send (I guess I might get more confident over time but I prefer the fact the 7.5" x 12" bag gives the fish more water than they would in a regular square-bottom bag yet takes up much less space in a box and seems to travel better.)

I have bigger ones also at 11.5" x 19" at $14 for 25 (working out at 56 cents each).

This was the size that interested me at first and would probably be needed for larger/adult fish that need more room to move but I haven't worked out how to use them effectively.

The plastic/ethylene used for these bags is scarily thin and when you fill a bag this size up with water it's so heavy that I keep feeling it's going to burst or leak everywhere. Mind you so did the 7.5"x12" ones when I looked at them initially but they turned out to be quite stable and practical when held in a newspaper sleeve (I fold a few sheets of newspaper up and sticky tape them together making a sleeve that the bag fits into).

I need to do some experimenting using two of these bigger ones double-bagged and then sitting it in a newspaper-sleeve and picking something big and spiky like a adult male electric blue and see how they go .... or even better I could convince someone else to test with an adult frontosa :-)

Postage is $4 for up to 500g (until I run out of the old 500g parcel and express post bags I have here and have to go to the post office to find out what they cost nowadays)

When I first looked at these I thought the prices were prohibitive (I was quoted over $800 just to ship a few boxes of bags out here.. on top of the price of the bags!) but 36 cents a bag isn't too bad when put in the context of shipping several hundreds of dollars worth of fish and paying up to $100 in airfreight.

If you're interested in some just work out what it is you want, the cost and pm me with postage details and I'll send you bank account details.

[Damon]

Thanks for your fantastic reply Laurie, I am getting rid of a lot of fish before the move but the fish I am taking are 12 bristle nose, up to 15cm is size, 4 clown loaches, the biggest being about 15cm (and these are bitey buggers) they have bitten me a few times and drawn blood. lol, 2 Pictus catfish (very spikey) And one 20cm catfish which is, I think an upside down catfish but has got to almost 20cm in size..

I am thinking with the spikeyness of some of these fish, these bags could end up springing a lot of leaks on the trip.

Maybe it would be wiser to stick to the old conventional bags filled with oxygen??