Fish shipping season rapidly coming to an end…

[Magnum Man]

They have come a long way on shipping fish, but the winter temperatures are still hard to overcome, and many shippers, won’t ship to me ( being in Minnesota ) at all during the winter… so my barb tank additions may be my last fish to add, until spring… just placing that order this week…
Anyone else with the same problem??? I’m like an addict going through withdrawals until April now…

 

[connorlindeman]

They have come a long way on shipping fish, but the winter temperatures are still hard to overcome, and many shippers, won’t ship to me ( being in Minnesota ) at all during the winter… so my barb tank additions may be my last fish to add, until spring… just placing that order this week…
Anyone else with the same problem??? I’m like an addict going through withdrawals until April now…

I have had deliveries from aquahuna in January. But then, we have been having mild(around 32degree) winters here.

 

[GaryE]

I get it. I don't trust shipping now. From here on in, I have to drive if I want new fish.

Common sense has to win out over what I want. Even if companies can ship with heat packs, a lot can go wrong. I would still consider airport to airport if I went for the pick up myself, but delivery to the house days are over til April or May.

That said, there is a region of high ground between me and the airport four hours away, and I could easily end up delayed and fighting through a snowstorm from this time of year onwards.

I go by nightime temperature. When we get consistently below 10c at night, the party's over.

We want fish when we are in the house, at this time of year. Every November I get a flurry of requests from people who want me to send them killifish, or killifish eggs. I'm always amazed that people don't even consider the idea that things freeze when it's cold. Plastic ships easily. Living things die.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

My rule has been I stop shipping just before Thanksgiving and will not resume until late Jan. I am more worried about the holiday shippoing season than the weather. However, this also depends upon when the fish ae going and what the temps are. I met not ship to places where it s is very cold sonner and longer after late jan as well.

My fish all ship warm and I use a thick styro and mutiple heat packs of varying duration.

The 24-30 hour packs heat up faster and reach peak heating capacity quickly. Then it is down hill form there. The 60 and 72 hour packs take longer to reach peak heat but the put out a steady heat for a lot longer before they start to decline. So a boc going out in gold weather I likely to have two short term and two long term packs.

I used to air[ort to airport until they change the rules. They insist upon visiting any "faciltiy" that will use their service. I am a home based hobby breeder and just stopped shipping that way as a result.

I also hate shipping. So I offer a 20% discount if one picks up. But I am just about done with that side of the hobby.

 

[GaryE]

Ah, the rules in Canada are you show up at the airport and you get the box. It will vary country to country.

I need to set up a mail drop across the border in Maine, and just drive down for Dan's Fish or Wet Spot fish. Reheboth in Florida has incredible fish now, but it's too cold to experiment with them.

 

[emeraldking]

I ship till somewhere in November. After that people need to wait till mid spring.

 

[Donya]

I'm redoing two marine tanks right now with no decent LFS within driving range, so I've been trying to beat that approaching temperature wall. With the weather being milder than normal this year, the in-transit temperatures seem to be less of a problem than the issue of where it sits on arrival. I'm hoping I can prolong the shipping period to my region just a bit by using a PO box for a couple things I still want to order, although frustratingly a lot of places don't allow those for livestock. I get it that they don't want live animals sitting waiting days for pickup, but where I live it's always faster and safer for perishable things to my PO box than having it go to my middle-of-nowhere home address where stuff gets dumped in a random place far away from the house and left to sit chilling in the wind for some time before the tracking finally updates. If I can't use the PO box then I may already be stuck until late spring.

 

[Magnum Man]

I was going in the post office several months ago, and there was a huge ruckus… someone had 300 day old chicks delivered to their post office box… owners couldn’t get there soon enough for the postal workers

 

[Donya]

I was going in the post office several months ago, and there was a huge ruckus… someone had 300 day old chicks delivered to their post office box… owners couldn’t get there soon enough for the postal workers

Being a chicken person myself, I don’t think they will ever send those to your door - they hold it at the office to pick up even if you use your home address. 300 though…yikes. That probably took up most of the back area lol.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

The USPS does something I doubt is done ny FedEx or UPS, they do not leave mail on their truck overnigh. Anything not delivered gets brought inside. But a lot of the USPS packages get transported most of the way by FedEx or UPS.

The only truly safe way to send fish is airport to airport of you can. It is faster than the other services and they used to an may still onsire live cargo. However, at certain times of the year you may have a box bumped of the plane due to so many package. Valentines day has a lot of flower moving associated with it and they get priority. Xmas time is another when deliveries surged and things are more likely to get delayed

 

[Oldspartan]

Our not so local fish store, hereinafter and forever more to be referred to the NSLFS, is willing to order what we want so long as we are willing to wait a reasonable time. Have not availed ourselves of this yet but soon will. Of course, what is a reasonable time. Subjective for sure.

 

[Naughts]

Anyone else with the same problem???

UK regulations only licence one or two next day delivery couriers to deliver fish. As they are specialised (and perhaps because distances are not vast here), they operate all year round.
Personally though, I don’t buy fish online.

 

[GaryE]

This is a thread where geography matters, a lot. I'm sure our members in warm places are rolling their eyes at us.

Canada is a perfect storm of high prices and slow delivery when it comes to ordering fish. Next day UPS from the nearest major fish importing centre, 850 km away, is $170 a box. Our national mail system delivers to an exposed, outdoor metal box up a hill and about a km away and can take 5 days for a 2 day guaranteed box. It is very intertwined with Fed Ex.

Not long after the new efficient private sector crew took over the mail system, I shut my side business selling rare livebearers because all packages were left in outdoor boxes, while costs went crazy. A $20 pair of fish could cost $50 to ship, and would arrive, well, whenever. Everyone blames the seller.

I have a lovely little local airport, but because of fuel costs, all the airlines using it have planes too small to accept fish boxes.

I get fish shipped to me by friends, and they are experienced professional shippers. It seems sensible to me to limit the season to not too cold, and not too hot. Yesterday, it was well below freezing with ice on the daphnia containers, and today, it is expected to be 18c (great for the kids in their Hallowe'en costumes!). Once it gets completely unpredictable...

 

[Back in the fold]

I was going in the post office several months ago, and there was a huge ruckus… someone had 300 day old chicks delivered to their post office box… owners couldn’t get there soon enough for the postal workers

Oh wow Man ! You just dredged up an old memory from my childhood . My Grandma was the Postmistress in Ovando Montana in the 1960’s and once we were visiting in the spring during one of those spring snowstorms . Somebody got a delivery of chicks and she let them out to warm up and me and my brother were told to keep our eye on them . We had a ball chasing those chicks all over the post office .

 

[gwand]

When I was quite young, maybe 5 years old my father bought home a rooster. It clucked around the property for a few days and then we had him for dinner.