Anything I can do to protect corals that may spend excessive time in a bag?

Hi guys. I'm very excited to go to MAX(Marine Aquarium Expo) in Costa Mesa tomorrow and I plan to bring home some nice frags. However I plan to go hang out in the Irvine area for a couple hours afterwards and may not be home until later. Is there anything I can add to the bags to protect them from stress/dying from staying in the bag for so long? Were talking maybe 7-8 hours in the bag? Should I bring a seperate container to keep the bags in, or add some Prime to the bags or anything? Any advice would be much appreciated, Thank you!

 

What?!? I just found out (thanks to you!) that this was happening! Oh my..i need to go!!

 

maybe grab a 7$ styrofoam cooler from walmart?, corals get shipped longer then that so I'm sure you'll be fine if you insulate it well

 

Cant put it in the car though, thay would either be too hot in the day, or too cold at night. Hmm..

 

Looks like your weather say slow 60s for the area. I would think a reasonable body of water, out of direct sunlight, in a well insulated car, in a well insulated cooler is not going to get too cold in that time period. If its even a considered threat, run the car heat 15 minutes half way through.

I think oxygen is a more serious issue. If it were me, I'd put water and a small pie of LR in the cooler and run a battery pump. I would be uncomfortable in stagnant water for that long ad I doubt there is an available source of oxygen to saturate the water with.

 

LOL! from your location I assume you are from Newport, Huntington area? You should definitely check it out if you can! It's my first time, not missing it this year! ;D And sunday's grand prize raffle drawing is a 24"x48" frag tank! ZOMG

Funny you should say that, I just picked one up at the 24/7 walmart =]. What do you recommend to insulate it with?

Yeah I'm going to try to park in the parking structure later in the day to keep temperature some what stable. What do you mean by carrot? I actually looked for the battery pump at walmart, I've seen it there before but not today. I will probably pull out a few pieces of rock from the fuge and put it in a bag to take with me. Should I ask for less water, and more air for the oxygen situation?

 

once again, thanks for the input guys. I've never purchased live stock online, only at LFS' so I've never dealt with anything live thats been in a bag for more than 2 hours. Are there any different precautions I should take when acclimating them after being in a bag for so long? I've heard that you should just temp acclimate them and put them in since they've been basking in high ammonia levels for so long. Is this true? Or what do you guys do when receiving live stock in the mail?

 

So I fixed the carrot thing; my spell-checker got the better of me. If you're going to keep the corals in closed bags, then use the biggest bags you can. You want more water and more air.

If you do get a battery pump, which I think is preferable, then I would want some sort of tub with a lid (like a big disposable container) that fits in the cooler, that you can put everything in, and that you can run the pump in for circulation. You can leave the container open when not traveling and turn the pump off and seal the container when you are.

If the frags come from multiple sources, you have to acclimate them all together, it's not ideal, but should be fine.

 

Ok, thanks! I hope it works out. I'll post pics in my tank thread in my sig if I bring home something nice Thanks for the help everyone!

 

I don't know if its sold in the states but a Zippo hand warmer comes in handy when i transport corals. Stays warm for 12 hours and produces a good amount of warmth.