I've put together a new fish room and have been working with Dan from cichlids of the americas to put together a large order for all of the CA cichlids that I plan to keep. Order was shipped on Tuesday for AM delivery Fedex air on Wed. The delivery did not show up Wed and after checking on it I saw it was hung in Memphis. Typically if Air shipments miss there flight they will not arrive until the next day. Thankfully my work has a huge fedex account and I was able to get fedex to help out. They got it on a flight mid afternoon and a great ramp worker at the Nashville airport hub arranged to pull the package from the bulk shipment and meet me at the dock for pickup. The fish finally were available at 8:00 last night so I drove an hr to the airport to try to salvage the order. When I pulled up, the ramp worker expressed his concern at the state of the package. I knew then why it got hung in Memphis. The box had been crushed. The cooler box was literally in pieces. The outer box was shredded and soaking wet. Someone had wrapped a bunch of tape around it and stuck it in another box. It looked very bad so I went ahead and opened the box, the water was extemely cold and in the mid to upper 40's. Several bags were popped and everything looked dead. Some of the fish were no longer even in water. I noticed 2 bags still had fish that appeared alive, everything else looked dead. I took some pictures, filed a shipping claim and rushed home to see if anything could be salvaged. I shot Dan an email and he instantly called me back and said no worries, he will replace everything and this happens about 1% of the time. I was relieved to hear that because it was an expensive order but at the same time felt bad for the fish and for Dan because it was not his fault. Below is what I ordered and how they faired. I can't believe some of these fish made it.
8" female grammodes (I have a huge male for her) arrived in 1 cm of water (not enough to submerse her head) with a large gash on her side and about a 4" hole in the bag. She was not stiff when I pulled her out so I pitched her in a tank and figured it was a lost cause. 10 minutes late she's swimming and acting like she's hungry!!
7" wild male Festae ( I have a nice female) bag was in good shape but water was 48 degrees. Fish was lifeless, it completely revived with an hr. has some cold water burns on all of it's fins but should recover
bag of about 12 1" trimacs, bag was in good shape, fish were 48 degrees, all of them revived
6 wild 4" ornatum all bagged seperate, 4 bags were popped with stiff dead fish, 2 had a chance, 1 revived. Sucks because these were nice looking
5 1" RTM bag was in good shape, water was 48 degrees, 3 out of 5 made it
6 4" wild morph snooks, bag was in good shape, water 48 degrees, all were lively in the bag and didn't seem overly stressed, all survived
6 1" chuco microthalmus bag was in good shape, water was 48 degrees, fish were lively in the bag and seemed unaffected, all survived
4 1" festae ordered for a friend, bag was intact but all were dead in the bag. Cold seemed to affect them more.
I was shocked at what all revived, a lot of them are already eating and acting normal. I'm sure I'll have an ich outbreak tomorrow or Sunday but that can easily be delt with. The grammodes literaly was not in water, it had to have been like that for hrs, maybe up to 12 hrs. Just goes to show, even if it doesn't look good give them a chance to revive when you receive a shipment. Dan is going to hook me up with some replacements sometime in the next few weeks. I was glad to have a mostly happy ending to a shipment that looked like a complete loss.
As a side note I have received numerous shipments from fedex and have sent hundreds out and never had this happen before.
8" female grammodes (I have a huge male for her) arrived in 1 cm of water (not enough to submerse her head) with a large gash on her side and about a 4" hole in the bag. She was not stiff when I pulled her out so I pitched her in a tank and figured it was a lost cause. 10 minutes late she's swimming and acting like she's hungry!!
7" wild male Festae ( I have a nice female) bag was in good shape but water was 48 degrees. Fish was lifeless, it completely revived with an hr. has some cold water burns on all of it's fins but should recover
bag of about 12 1" trimacs, bag was in good shape, fish were 48 degrees, all of them revived
6 wild 4" ornatum all bagged seperate, 4 bags were popped with stiff dead fish, 2 had a chance, 1 revived. Sucks because these were nice looking
5 1" RTM bag was in good shape, water was 48 degrees, 3 out of 5 made it
6 4" wild morph snooks, bag was in good shape, water 48 degrees, all were lively in the bag and didn't seem overly stressed, all survived
6 1" chuco microthalmus bag was in good shape, water was 48 degrees, fish were lively in the bag and seemed unaffected, all survived
4 1" festae ordered for a friend, bag was intact but all were dead in the bag. Cold seemed to affect them more.
I was shocked at what all revived, a lot of them are already eating and acting normal. I'm sure I'll have an ich outbreak tomorrow or Sunday but that can easily be delt with. The grammodes literaly was not in water, it had to have been like that for hrs, maybe up to 12 hrs. Just goes to show, even if it doesn't look good give them a chance to revive when you receive a shipment. Dan is going to hook me up with some replacements sometime in the next few weeks. I was glad to have a mostly happy ending to a shipment that looked like a complete loss.
As a side note I have received numerous shipments from fedex and have sent hundreds out and never had this happen before.
