Wholesale Fish Handling Practices

[BeltwayBandit]

I recently went to a wholesale/retail outlet and observed their "technique" of aclimating and storing livestock. I am just curious, is this the norm for wholesalers? Above average/below average? I realize that fish are horribly mistreated from reef to tank, I guess I'm just trying to guage the level of stress inflicted upon them.

But, by far the absolute worst thing that I saw was how they "acclimate" the new arrivals. They would start by unpacking the boxes with the fish in bags. These bags they would float in a large styrofoam container. They then cut the bags open poured off most/all of the shipping water and then dumped the fish back into the container underneath the floating bags. They haphazardly dumped all of the fish into this container. I looked in and there were at least 40 fish, tangs, angels, triggers, clowns, damsels, in this container. Some of the larger fish were laying on their side because there was not enough water for them to swim upright. Then one of the workers would reach in and scoop up one of these highly stressed out fish, most had little/no color, and walk down the aisle until he found a tank that he wanted to put the fish in. He then plopped the fish into the little 4x4 inch container hanging inside the tank. Others were tossed straight into one of their sales tanks. Needless to say I was appalled and will never shop there again.

BB

[DgenR8]

I hat to say it, but I don't doubt that what you saw is common practice.

[bookfish]

However, I have worked in 3 or 4 marine wholesalers and I have always been instructed to drip- acclimate the new arrivals.
This is just common business sense since dead fish don't help the bottom line.
-Jim

[RicksReefs]

fairly common practice, some beleive it's best to
get'em out of the contaminated shipping water
full of ammonia/co2 asap. figure they've been in
transit 12-24 hrs depending on origin, so the water
can be pretty acidic/polluted.
some are just to indifferent to care one way or another,
& do what's convenient.

[MarkS]

I think you went to a regular fish store and not a wholeseller. And, no what you saw is not good!

[mps9506]

I believe drip acclimation is bad for fish that have been bagged for a long period of time. The bag contains low pH and high ammonia that becomes toxic when the bag is opened to fresh air.
I believe it is common practice for most places to simply temp. acclimate and drop the fish in because it is better than leaving the fish in a container full of ammonia and extreemly low pH...
Just hwat I've been taught, and working in a shop on the east coast, some fish come in bags with some pretty bad looking water. We move em out of the bagged water asap into clean good water.
Mike

[bookfish]

Well I can see two sides to this whole thing-which explains the 2 methods.
Which is worse for a fish, the shock of a radical change from dirty bag water to clean tank water, or an additional period in water that is changing from awful to slightly less awful?*
As a side note, when I drip something from my LFS I tend to use a slower rate (since it isn't dying in polluted bag water) but at the wholesalers it was a very fast drip.-Jim

*rhetorical question

[cortez marine]

Dear Beltway,
You said it was a wholesale/retail place...which speaks volumes.
In other words it was a retailer... who wants to get those "cheaper" imported prices.
Sounds like the ambition was there but not the talent. The public cannot witness the real acclimation process easily because the public is not allowed in to bonafide wholesale facilities.
Handling thousands of fish every week eliminates the guess work for us @ Cortez Marine. We slow drip up to 2 hours in the dark on long bag time imports from Asia.
Short time imports from LA...temp acclimation alone may be good enough but there are other factors involved and poorly understood at that.
I would love to just temp acclimate and "dump em in"...but would not like to kill so many fish as a result.
It is easy enough for us to test this...and we have. A box of green chromis in slow drip and a box of temp acclimation/no drip...produces a distinct difference.
Slow drip kills much less.
Illogical to some who try to overanalyze it with out control of all the variables I imagine...but the body count is what I judge by.
Slow drip is more time consuming, water consuming and with 25 trays laid out ...space consuming. We do it to keep the fish alive and less stressed. Fish come first...nothing else matters.
Steve Robinson
@ Cortez Marine

[mps9506]

Steve,
What do you recomend for any retailers when they receive fish?
Just wondering as I have heard different methods from different people, esp. on the chem forum. After a fish has been in a bag for 12 hours from being shipped from LA to the other coast would you leave it in the same water?
My experience has been pretty good so far with the simple acclimation procedure and cutting the lights out. I started doing this with ORA's advice. When I first started I did drip acclimate fish, and honestly the fish seem fine either way. I have noticed fish that are rapidly respiring or look bad in the bag seem to pull through better when I just "dump them."
Mike