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I’m eternally grateful to this community - without it my reef would not be where it is today. The next step is to sell/ship frags at reasonable prices via the propagated coral part of this forum. However nailing down the right way to ship corals is a must. This thread has been helpful, but info is sporadic and not a lot of detail. Please hammer this as appropriate. But note to date, I have not shipped a single coral. I basically searched - cut and pasted all the ref link material (below) and including this one into one document, and went through it a dozen times to summarize it to this point. My plan is to (a) finalize shipping best practices (b) validate material order list and then order it all (c) get certified via FedEx (d) offer frags via this forum
For best practices on how to ship SPS coral, there are two main areas that I’m still uncomfortable with.
First, is whether or not to put O2 or Air in with the container during shipping - or not to, leaving just water in the container (bag or p-cup). If the consensus is to use air, should it be normal air, or O2 from a bottle? 1/5 the water volume?
Second, is when and how to use heat packs or cool packs. When a styro box is sealed, heat packs essentially lose the ability to heat after using up the air in an air tight box. This seems to be the method most used from shipments I’ve received. I assume the goal is to get a good temp inside the box so when it’s sealed up, the vacuum is less susceptible to outside cold temps. My question in all this is – is it better to leave a small deliberately made hole to let air in a bit so the heat packs still function? For cold packs, I’ve read if the transient temp is going to be over 85deg F, then use a cold pack. I’d gather that the cold pack will work even if the box is all sealed up. It’s kind of cryptic on when to use the cool pack though.
(GAP) Air in the coral container
(GAP) Heat packs and loosing heat when there is no o2
(GAP) When to cool or not to cool a box
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