# Shipping fish w/o kordon bags



## cucci67 (Aug 3, 2005)

I have never shipped a fish before (will very soon), and all the ones I have recieved by mail were in kordon breather bags. Do they have to be in breather bags, or can you ship with regular poly bags? I mean the most time they can be in the mail is three days says USPS with priority mail (not really a guarantee, but I have never had it take longer), so does it have to be a kordon bag?


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## Lydia (Feb 6, 2005)

I've shipped before without kordon bags and all the fish arrived alive. I put a piece of anacharis in each of the bags with the fish...I'm not sure if that helped or not but it's worth a try.


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## cucci67 (Aug 3, 2005)

Oh good, I have plenty of anacharis. Thank you.


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## Christine (Nov 4, 2005)

There was a great post by SueM on shipping but I can't seem to find it.. I thought it was stickied in the auction section but guess not. No you don't *have* to use breather bags. In fact for some fish breather bags would be bad to use. Any fish that requires surface air to breathe should not be shipped in a breather bag. I have shipped guppies fine both ways. I've shipped corys and bettas in the normal bags and have not had problems.


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## garfieldnfish (Jan 18, 2005)

Like Christine said, for labyrinth fish (betas, gouramis etc.) poly bags are better, because you can trap air inside the bag. Kordon breather bags go flat and don't leave much surface air to breathe for those fish. I prefer the breather bags, but I ship plecos in them. They are more pliable and therefore don't puncture easy. I still double bag but make the outer bag much bigger. I have been told by a fish importer that if fish are in transit for a long time in poly bags, the moment you open the bag the oxygen that enters the bag makes the ammonia much more toxic in an instant. Which then would mean that in breather bags the fish will not run out of oxygen but if they get delayed and poop a lot the ammonia could kill them. So if you use breather bags make sure you don't feed the fish the day prior to shipping


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## violet (Mar 17, 2006)

The advantage I like most about breathers is that they don't slosh. With each Post Office seeming to have different rules on boxes with water and/or fish. I prefer to not have sloshing if I can help it. Even if where I hand it off doesn't mind, what about all those other people handling the box. I do also think not being able to slosh is less stressful. But fish which normally like to sip air are going to need air space anyways.

I would definitely not put any plant material in. They use CO2 and give off O2 *in light*. But in the dark they do the opposite. They give off CO2 and use O2, not much but there is no advantage, and a disadvantage without breathers.

violet


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## Alin10123 (May 22, 2005)

Lydia said:


> I've shipped before without kordon bags and all the fish arrived alive. I put a piece of anacharis in each of the bags with the fish...I'm not sure if that helped or not but it's worth a try.


Well... at night plants absorb oxygen and release CO2. Wont that take away oxygen from the fish?


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## Osiris (Jan 18, 2005)

I've seen a small sponge like thing in the past in the bag not a clue what purpose that serves.


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## joe kool (Jan 24, 2005)

Mala said:


> I've seen a small sponge like thing in the past in the bag not a clue what purpose that serves.


some folks get "bullets", the holes that are punched out of the sponge filters most of us use in our tanks any way, and put them in a sump or in the tank with fish they ship. Bacteria colonize the sponge just like any other and it's like having a mini ecosystem in the bag ... so I hear


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## lohachata (Jan 27, 2006)

kordon bags are only a recent invention.they don't work for all fish or plants or animals.only put plants in a bag for things like snails.
regular poly bags have been used to ship fish for decades..99.99% of all fish shipped in the world are shipped in poly bags.there are no commercial operations that i know of that ship in kordon bags.


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## Christine (Nov 4, 2005)

Too expensive to use them on a large scale probably I'd guess, especially since the others work fine. I think people that really "care" about their fish would be the ones that would be more inclined to use them. And that doesn't mean that if you use poly bags you don't care lol.


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## cucci67 (Aug 3, 2005)

Well, I am probably going to go with the poly bags for now. I will have to see how it goes. Lohachata, I hadn't thought abotu shipping before breather bags were invented, that reasures me.


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## joe kool (Jan 24, 2005)

keep in mind the breather bags are designed for NO AIR to be in the bag, full of water. this has several advantages outside of the just the ability to allow valuable oxygen into and bad co2 out the main one being the minimization of the "sloshing" in the bag and chance of a fish getting left high and DRY in a crease somewhere if the box gets turned over. there aren't many fish that need air @ the top of the bags honestly even bettas are shipped routinely in what ammounts to a tea bag with little to no air in them either. MOST fish that aren't air breathers and strictly top water fish (african butterfly fish) would be better off in the breather bag. acclimation proceedures are a little diffrent as you don't float the bags but you can find all that info on their website ... I'll post an excerpt here in a sec


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## joe kool (Jan 24, 2005)

here's what Krodon says about them:
KPD-74
GENERAL INFORMATION ON KORDON'S BREATHING BAGS:
The Kordon® Breathing Bag represents a new approach to the problems of shipping live fishes and other aquatic animals over long distances or for extended time periods. The product development staff at Kordon, teamed with plastics chemical engineers, have taken a technology first developed in space/military research and refined it to produce the bags being offered today. The Breathing Bag allows the transfer of simple and complex gas molecules through the plastic wall of the bag -- carbon dioxide and oxygen in particular, as well as other gases - providing a true "breathing" bag in place of a "barrier" bag. As long as there is a normal breathable atmosphere outside the Breathing Bag, the animals inside will not run out of oxygen. Carbon dioxide exits the bags at 4 times the rate oxygen enters the bags, thereby constantly purging the water of toxic carbon dioxide, and allowing oxygen to replace it in the water. Kordon has shipped millions of bags (termed "Sachets") of living foods (tubifex worms, brine shrimp, daphnia, glass worms, etc.) for aquarium fishes using the Breathing Bag technology.

Prior to this invention, the only plastic bags available for shipping fishes were made of polyethylene and had no mechanism to allow the passage of gasses through the bag wall. When using these "barrier" bags, any oxygen must-of necessity-be added as a gas inside the bag prior to sealing. This process has many problems. High concentrations of oxygen can cause flammable conditions. The presence of oxygen inside the bag takes up a lot of valuable shipping space. Once the supplied oxygen is used up there is no more available. Toxic carbon dioxide from the fishes' breathing builds up in the water, displacing the oxygen. The oxygenated air in the bags may not be satisfactory for fishes' breathing, because (particularly from sources in underdeveloped countries), the bottled oxygen may be contaminated. A bag partially full of water with the rest filled with oxygen allows the contents to slosh during transport, stressing fishes.

METHODS FOR USE: 
After adding water and fishes,seal the bag with as little airspace as possible.

Except for those few kinds of fishes that are made uncomfortable by the lack of an air space at the surface, fishes adapt readily to the lack of an airspace and it is not needed. It is best if there is no air pocket in the bag so that there is no water movement, keeping the fishes calmer. An uneeded air space also uses up valuable shipping space.

Breathing bags can be sealed using all of the current methods: rubber bands, twist ties, metal clips, etc. An excellent way for fast efficient sealing is with a bar type heat sealer. The plastic used in the "Breathing Bags" readily seals with heat. Heat sealing can be done much more quickly than other methods and greatly increases the speed with which bags can be handled and sealed. For those sealing many bags for shipment the change will be a dramatic reduction in labor.

The proper use of certain water conditioners will greatly enhance the effectiveness of the Breathing Bags. Either a combination of AmQuel® and NovAqua® or AmQuel and PolyAqua® with a suitable antibiotic (Kordon has found Neomycin to be among the best of the antibiotics for universal usage) has proven the most effective. All the Kordon "Sachets" have special combinations of additives to increase the well being and survival of the inhabitants. These additives are in the process of being marketed under the general trade name of "Kordon Aquatic Life Saver". There are separate products for freshwater and marine conditions.

CHARACTERISTICS:
The plastic in the "Breathing Bags" is very tough and flexible. The thickness is 1.5 ml for the regular bags and 3 ml for the liner bag. Small punctures such as from fish spines often do not penetrate the plastic, and if they do, the molecular structure of the plastic tends to realign and reduce the size of the holes or reseal itself. Some fishes may damage the bag film enough to cause leaks. Only experimentation and experience will determine which individual species of fishes are safe to transport . Kordon is experimenting with a heavier walled and perforated liner bag to fit inside the Breathing Bag to help with the puncture problem. For most smaller spiny fishes it is sufficient to multiple bag them, Breathing Bag within Breathing Bag, preferably with the inner bag wrapped in one or more layers of newspaper. There is a proportionate loss of breathability (up to approximately 50%) for one bag inside another, which will affect different animals differently. The user should experiment to find acceptable conditions for multiple bagging.

Breathing Bags function well when packed in conventional foam plastic or corrugated boxes. Foam and cardboard boxes have a high rate of breathability, even if these containers are sealed with tape. Air is normally over 20% oxygen, which is over 200,000 ppm (parts per million). Aquatic invertebrates and fishes normally have only about 4-14 ppm oxygen available to them in water. It takes only a small amount of air passing through the packaging materials to sufficiently oxygenate the water in the Breathing Bags. This is even true for shipping boxes in an air cargo space that is not pressurized. There is usually sufficient oxygen at higher altitudes for the aquatic life in the Breathing Bags. If it is required, additional oxygen can be added to the Breathing Bag as is done in the traditional barrier bag. The Breathing Bag will retain the oxygen for several days.

Higher temperatures increase the "breathability" of the bags, the rate at which oxygen and carbon dioxide is exchanged.

When packing individual bags in shipping containers, it is best to separate each bag, such as with flat pieces of corrugated cardboard or layers of newspaper, so that as much bag surface area as possible is exposed to the air in the shipping container.

Breathing Bags should not be shipped inside a "barrier" type liner bag. The barrier effect of the outer bag will prevent the Breathing Bags from performing properly.

During tests, fishes, both freshwater and marine have survived for several weeks and successive flights. However, there is no uniform answer as to how long any individual shipment will survive using Breathing Bags. There are far too many variables. It is suggested that tests be conducted at the user's facility to determine the proper parameters for sucessful use of these bags.

OTHER USES: 
Kordon's Breathing Bags are highly recommended for transporting aquatic plants. Plants need to transpire just as animals do, and they expel toxic gases during shipment that, if not eliminated, are injurious to them. Breathing Bags eliminate this problem. It is recommended that the plants be dipped in diluted Kordon PolyAqua to keep the plants moist and to help them in their respiration.

and here's their site: http://www.novalek.com/kpds.htm


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