How I dry shipped my corals :)

[TinFury]

Ok I bought these corals up in Orlando while I was up there. Left top to bottom right they are Red/Pink Mushrooms, Green star polyps, White centered red outer zoanthids, some large polyp thing like a huge zoanthid, a strange frilled musroom, and mastermind flayer zoantids. I got these small pieces so I could carry them with me on the plane easily. These babies were purchased the day before I flew and sat in a tupperware container of water overnight without an air pump, I just didn't have one where I was. I also repeatedly wrung out a bath rag in saltwater then wrapped everything into that. Seperating the corals in the diffrent folds. For the anemone I put him in a bowl and let him expel his water poured the water off, repeat, repeat till there wasn't much water and dropped him in a ziplock. The corals wrapped in damp (not soaking wet) rag were also dropped in ziplock. All this stuff was stuffed into my backpack and I hopped on my plane. The anemone kinda got crushed by something in my bag. Arg! Everything went into the bag at 11:30AM









My trip was in 2 parts. I realized that I had done a stupid thing with the ziplock bags. I squeezed most of the air out of the bags and then zipped them shut. I forgot that these things were animals and needed to breath!!!! I opened the bags carefully and a foul smell came out of them. OMG!!! It was like rotted shrimp. A couple people sitting close by started to look for the source of the smell!!! I quickly (and smothly) went into the bathroom with the 2 ziplock bags and airated the bags by opening and closing them to get fresh air into the bags. I figured everything was dead from the smell but carried em anyway. On that second plane it was about 5:30PM that I smelled the death. I was finally in a taxi at about 8:30PM I quickly opened the bags as soon as I could to let fresh air in. The smell was horrible at this point.




Finally back at home I unpacked everything. Carfully, I thought that the anemone would be melted to nothing but it seemed ok. I had the corals in my pockets a couple times on the journey and wondered if my body heat would have messed them up. Although the smell was horrible it wasn't coming from the corals or anemone. It seems that some small amphiopods were on the rocks and they passed out while in the bag giving off the smell. I dumped the corals into 2 containers of water and airated them!!!! The whole time they didn't have air was about.... I'd say 10Hrs. Wow this is a long post. I'm at work now, when I get home I'll post letting everyone know what lived and what died.

[amcarrig]

So, I think what you're trying to say is that they smelled horrible?

Great job on the transport! Can't wait to see pictures of everything once they've adjusted to your tank!

[geekdafied]

LMAO if you had to explain to security why you had corals in your pocket, hahahahahaha

hope they all made it bro!

[Matt Rogers]

Not sure about the legalities of this, but cool thread.
Years ago when I moved to California I brought my Tiger Barbs in a carry-on bag. The security let me through but chuckled a bit.

[geekdafied]

who cares about the legalities, hes a coral bandito!

[cuttingras]

LMAO...Tin, you gonna help me when we make it down there in Dec??? They're gonna think I'm a nasty pig of a woman coming back in US Customs LMAO "Nothing to declare, but I think I have a disease of some sort...probably from snorkeling"
Apparently there aren't any good stores in Jamaica??? Hubby says no on going to Kingston, but hey...we ain't there yet hehe...

[TinFury]

Yo msg me closer to the time your coming. Maybe I can show you some stuff down in negril like some mushrooms or zoanthids in the wild. I'll show you guys what made it soon. I got a chiller!!!!! 1/15 for 75Gal... I know..... I know.... that's all the guy had in the store I also bought some nets for trapping fish from some scuba shop. I'll post somethign on that as well.

[baugherb]

Uh!!!!! Dude, did you fart????? Coral smugglers rule!!!!!

[TinFury]

The red mushrooms are all ok I don't have a pic of them yet. The cinamon zoanthid is starting to open up slowly.



Here are the Mastermind Flayers they were openend up for the 1st couple of days but have since closed. If anyone knows anything about positioning of these zoanthids lemme know. Maybe I have too much flow on them.


This weird mushroom is bulletproof. It was actually grownign on the plane while out of water... lol.


The anemone had a couple air bubbles stuck into him so when I put him in the tank he kept floating up to the surface. I pressed the bubbles out of him and got what I could to come out of his mouth and he's doing great.


The green stars just started coming out yesterday and look like they will do good.


Woot. Success. I heard of someone that dry shipped some fish. I'm gonna try that with some local fish at 100% humidity and post here.... lol.

[IBMGeek]

Originally Posted by TinFury

Woot. Success. I heard of someone that dry shipped some fish. I'm gonna try that with some local fish at 100% humidity and post here.... lol.

You say that playing but I know that in fishing if you want to keep some shrimp alive you get a bucket or cooler and fill it with some ice. Then you get newspaper and wet it in saltwater and put it over the ice and then put the shrimp on top of the newspaper,they stay alive for hours . I would not try it with fish though .