Best way to ship corals esp. xenia?

sdbeazley · #1 06/17/2004, 10:43 AM

Hi guys, I am doing some frag trading and we are going to use the same insulated box to ship the frags. I have bags for the corals and all of the frags are attached to very small slices of live rock.

Last time I shipped xenia it melted so how do I keep it alive?
Do I attachit to styrofoam and make it float or do I just tie it to something and make sure it is weighted to the bottom of the bag?

How much water goes into the bags? How much oxygen is needed for shipping corals?

thanks

I plan on shipping small zoo rocks
Yuma
Candy Cane
and a small piece of pumping xenia!

Reefmedic79 · #2 06/17/2004, 08:57 PM

Xenia are horrible shippers, most mail order companies won't even guarantee their shipping. They should be fine as long as it doesn't take more the 12 hours to get from one tank to the next aside from that, I can't think of much more.

sdbeazley · #3 06/17/2004, 09:01 PM

ok, thanks!

Frick-n-Frags · #4 06/21/2004, 10:36 AM

Some people take the xenia and tick it off so it slimes really good(or bad

), THEN rinse it and put it in clean water in the bag, giving it a bit more water than usually given for frags.

rick at coraldynamics used to do that and he actually had a pretty good success rate.

KindCorals · #5 06/22/2004, 06:04 PM

I've never tried it but heard you can float it upside down in the bag so if it does slime, gravity will pull the slime down. Maybe try this method along with Frick-n-Frags and you might get it to arrive alive!

sdbeazley · #6 06/22/2004, 06:37 PM

I did what you said KindCorals last time and it died. This time I am going to try two frags one small arm of xenia already glued to the lid of a filmcanister and one that floats again. I got my traders shipment today everything lived! I will send mine out Tuesday, i will post an update as to which survived.

caribsol · #7 07/04/2004, 01:10 PM

A fairly LFS also floated the xenia we bought. They rubberbanded the rock holding xenia to a piece of styrofoam. This worked for our 2 hour trip home. Hope this helps.!

shannon h · #8 10/07/2006, 02:28 AM

Ok guy's...If your shipping in camera film cases? that could be a huge problem. When the coral ship's, it slimes ..in it's own slime???It can never get away from it! There fore suffocateing. Ship it in a bigger contanier with a little carbon. The bigger cantaner will let the coral breath and the carbon will act as a filter during shipping, hope that helps.

will sullivan · #9 10/08/2006, 01:03 PM

Eric borneman done an article about shipping acropora (high slime rate). He recommends shipping the corals "dry" wrapped in some damp breathable paper towels to keep the humitidity at 100% when a coral slimes in water bacteria begin to break down the slime and use up the oxygen , as well as the slime building up and suffucating the coral. wrap the base of the coral on some styrofoam to prevent it from making contact with the bag and help prevent it from sliming more. he had good success with this procedure.

banditfl · #10 10/09/2006, 06:36 PM

I have shipped Xenia at Least a dozen times. I have had only one DOA. I try to ship only smaller pieces and smaller lightweight substrate. I try to keep the mass as small as possible. Always attached the Xenia's substrate with rubber bands to small piece of Styrofoam and float it in a bag with a little more water than other frags. Always ship overnight in a foam box with a cold pack in hot weather, they just melt if they get to hot. I actually float most of my corals that I ship. Prevents damage to the bags to minimize leakage. Also minimizes damage to the tissue of the frags. When shipping I did some experements and now I "DRY" ship all my zoo frags. wrapipng then in paper towels dampened with reef water and then placed in a bag.