How long can fish stay in their bags

[Lucifer]

Is there a way i can make them stay in a bag for about 6 hours??

I dont have oxygen gas to put in the bag

[Willy Wombat]

6 hours in a bag will probably be OK

BUT: Make sure the fish have not been fed for at least 24 hours prior to them being bagged, otherwise 6 hours might be too long. Also keep thenm in an insulated container so the temperature doesnt change too much.

Cheers and good luck - transporting fish is always risky

WW

[rosco]

Lucifer

As Willy said 6 hours should be fine. I believe that some people add prime to water to reduce stress levels, but I am not sure as I have never transported fish before. I picked up some fair number of fish at the wollongong auction, check in was around 12:30pm and they did not get back in to a fish tank until 1:00am. So they were in the bag for well over 12 hours. I believe they all survived (it is hard to tell with the amount of BN I bought ). I did put the fish in a foam box for travelling along with several other purchases so they could huddle together to keep warm.

When I got them back into home I put them in a plastic bucket and slowly (over about 1 hour) added my tank water to the bucket to slowly warm them up. Then I removed them from the bucket and put them in my quarantine tank and threw out the rest of the water. It has worked for me several times without a loss (touch wood) so give it a go.

cheers

Rosco

[graceless]

Hey Lucifer,

I have never lost a fish in transport, and have had them in bags sometimes for up to 12 hours without oxygen (gotta love the whirlwind sydney trips).

Like the others said, try and avoid feeding them if you are bagging them yourself. or if you are getting them from someone else, ask them not to feed them if possible. again this isn't essential in my experience.

best bet is a drop or 2 of prime into the bag, or if you want to be really tricky, throw an airstone in the bag for 10 or 15 mins before you close it. i don't really know if this does anything, or whether it is just a placebo effect for me!

foam packaging is good, as suggested. i also have found that if you want to go overboard, throw a polarfleace rug or something into the box as well, as they hold temp nicely too.

I woulnd't stress that much. i've had fish under 2cm last 12 hours chockablock in a bag (25 fish in 1 bag) and not lost a single one. even salt water fish we have transported for several hours without oxygen and no losses. if you can bag them individually (if they are larger fish) do it, but really mate, from my experience stressing is unnecissary.

Grace

[sorroz]

You could have a look at Cichlids_au's Survival Guide for some more info on bagging fish. Bagged correctly fish can last 24hours easily so 6 hours is next to no time at all,overcrowding and poor water (usually from the fish not being purged/not fed for a couple of days) is the biggest cause of deaths in bagged fish.

Another way of transporting fish is to use a bucket with alid and a aerator and airstone.

Kevin

[Chilli Powder]

The biggest killer of fish in bags is not lack of oxygen. It is due to ammonia poisoning. This is why you need to purge fish. ie not feed them for minimum of 24 hours. Also use Prime or somthing similar. I had fish in bags for over 15hrs when driving back from Sydney. I had to do two major detours and the fish were fine. I used Seachem Prime. I was also told not to put prime when the fish are in the bags but to do it beforehand. Apparently Prime is strong enough to blind them. Not sure whether this is true or not and I'm not willing to take a chance.

Another thing I do is fill up smaller fish bags with warm water. Not hot but pretty warm. I place these bags among my fish bags to keep the water warm.

Cheers.

[wetfish]

air quality is very important:

Ive seen many people blow air into the bag so that it looks full. In the past i have been guilty of this method. It puts alot of carbon dioxide into the bag. therefore shortening the time they can stay in the plastic bag safely.

i use my air pump to fill the bag (need a large out put pump)

i also have a plasic pump that which i got from a water ballon packet that pumps air into the bag. next best thing to having oxygen and u can get alot of air into the bags. Catching air i find doesnt trap enough air into the bag. but i think my technique has alot to do with that.

wetfish

[Cichlids_au]

While I agree that air quality is important, there are some facts that need to be remembered.

Inhaled air contains 21% oxygen and exhaled air contains 16% oxygen, so only 5% of the oxygen in the air is used by your body, this is why expired air resuscitation works, the patient is still able to use 5% of the remaining 16% that you exhale. So for short trips, expired air is not an issue.

Bad water on the other hand is a major concern and will kill your fish in minutes.

[trofius]

i had 7, 4-5cm daffodils (N. pulcher) in a small size bag, I sold to the lfs. 2 days later i went back in there and the fish were sytill in the bag, they were floated on the tank to a adjust the temp and forgotten, I wasnt real happy pointing it out to them.. but they all survived, very pale looking , but Ok,, and these fishe were not purged, as i thought they would only be in the bag for about 30mins...

[Nigel]

When i was bringing fish from Germany thay would be in the bags for 40 hours plus. The loses most of the time where few. It all depends how thay are packed i like to put Seachem stress guard in with them rather than prime. Seachem say that its better for transporting fish rather than useing prime.

[mickvick]

RE maintaining temp, similar to Arj's suggestion of using bags with warm water, is using a hot water bottle inside the styro box, not too hot, just warm enough. The hot water bottle will hold its warmth longer than the bags with warm water as suggested.

Michael

[Sarah]

for long journeys 8 hours + ,as insulation you can wrap the outside of the bag with newspaper and then double bag it, hope that makes sense but basically have the first bag covered in newspaper and then place it inside another bag.

cheers

Sarah