Jestersix

Learn from me; DO NOT ship your livestock

K

Krak256

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Hi everyone, I recently moved to the Bay area from NYC and wanted to keep my livestock as I was attached to them (raising clownfish from a centimeter and growing colonies from tiny frags).

If anyone in the future is considering taking your livestock on a long distance move, learn from my mistake and just get rid of them for their sake.

This past Thursday my NYC LFS packed my corals and fish into 4 boxes and shipped them overnight. On Friday morning, FedEx delivered 2 boxes which were leaking. Basically all my SPS were dead and the water was ice cold. I contacted FedEx to find out what happened with my other 2 boxes and they said they are stuck in their Memphis hub but the remaining packages should be delivered by Saturday. They said they would call me back Friday evening with an update (which they did not).

Saturday rolls around... no boxes. I called FedEx again and now they're telling me that they can't find the boxes. I express my frustration and they said they're taking notes and opening up a case but that's all they can do. If they can find the boxes, the earliest they can deliver is Monday.

Now it's Monday. One box is still missing and the other arrived in the South San Fran sorting facility. I'm not sure why they couldn't deliver it but whatever; I jump into an Uber and rush over. I arrive and find the cardboard box is leaking and falling apart while the inner styrofoam box is split open. I swear they were just tossing the boxes around.

Moral of the story... my efforts to keep the livestock in the family basically their death sentence. Apologies for the rant, I just needed to express my frustration.
 
Sorry to hear.
I don’t dare to ship anything now.
I am more inclined to blame lfs for leaked boxes and not enough heat pads
 
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Pretty crappy for sure. With a move like yours I honestly would have sold everything and started new. I wish you luck with your new start
 
That is a bummer, but to me this sounds more of a packing issue and lack of experience shipping livestock. I know this doesn't help your problem, but WWC, Battle corals, TSA, AquaSD ship packages all the time. I myself have shipped probably around 50 boxes of coral across the lower 48 states the past year. Leaking bags are definitely a result of poor bagging, as well as the cold water. I have yet to have a leaking bag and I've shipped into 20F weather with bags of water still at 65F+. I'd also would only recommend shipping Monday-Wednesday so that you minimize the chance of packages getting stuck over the weekend.

Again, sorry you had a rough go about it, but shipping can definitely be an option if the shipper does things correctly. Obviously, weather issues can still screw you, but in general you can avoid storms if watch the weather report.
 
Ouch, sorry to hear. With all the CV19 stuff and so many people off or out of their normal routines, right now just isn’t the right time to ship.
 
Honestly I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if this is Coronavirus related, with people possibly getting sick, shipping companies have deadlines to do, so maybe less workers but the same deadlines, so they're a lot less careful with packages (which isn't saying that much) which lead to the number of crushed/leaky boxes.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Honestly I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if this is Coronavirus related, with people possibly getting sick, shipping companies have deadlines to do, so maybe less workers but the same deadlines, so they're a lot less careful with packages (which isn't saying that much) which lead to the number of crushed/leaky boxes.
Click to expand...

A well packed and sealed bag that is double or even tripled bagged in a 3/4" or 1" lined Styrofoam cardboard box (or even an fully enclosed Styrofoam container) that is packed with peanuts or paper to minimize in box movement should really never leak unless the box has been significantly crushed - like stomped on or run over. If it does, it is likely because of a poor bag sealing method. And COVID-19 or not, delivery services have never been nice to shipped boxes. I have the video from my home deliveries to prove it. ;)
 
A long time ago a friend of mine who worked UPS borrowed my video camera to record just how bad they treat boxes. I saw the tape of them just throwing and kicking them.
 
We have been able to ship all over the US so far everything has arrived on time and alive. Sorry about your loss. We always double bag and take to the hub as late as possible to minimize our babies in transit for long. Not sure if you are in the market for Designer clowns let me know if we can do something to help you out.
 
for sure it is possible to ship anything and pretty much everything, it just costs $$ and things need to be well packed with loooove.

I am super sorry to hear that your packages had issues and livestock suffered. When I moved from RI I had my corals shipped out (as frags though) and it went well.
 
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