Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Thoughts on this idea?

I will be picking up 36 pumpkinseed broodstock fish from a hatchery in New York (minimum of 6 inches) in about a month. (I have to wait for the health testing to come back and my permit to bring them into my state once I apply).

Anyway, I have a tank on a trailer but it's overkill for this few fish, and it a really makes the gas gauge needle on the SUV drop fast if you know what I mean.

I'd like to use a 120 qt. cooler, but as you know no matter what you do water bangs back and forth in the tank and it's inevitable that some sloshes out. There are ways to combat this but invariably some water still comes out especially on sudden stops. I will tell you from experience fish water stinks badly in vehicle carpet even after it dries!

Anyway, other than putting a tarp down and/or placing the cooler in a tarp and tying it up like a drawstring purse on top, with towels around the cooler to soak up spilling, I came up with another idea and would like some feedback on it.

I have oxygen in a tank and the equipment to pump up plastic bags for transport in five gallon buckets. I once transported some fingerling smallmouth from Hinklings in New York that way by deflating the bags and reinflating with oxygen when needed. Fish came home alive and O.K. after the 9 hour trip.

I also have some heavy duty greenhouse plastic still in the box (so it shouldn't have any holes in it). What if I made a very large bag in the 120 quart cooler and pumped in up with oxygen? I could even run an oxygen probe in the bag before tying off to monitor oxygen as I drive and deflate, and repump with oxygen if and when the probe indicated to do so. I realize the probes are supposed to move back and forth but from my experience if you don't do that you just get a lower reading which would be O.K. A conservative reading would be better than the other extreme.

Thoughts?

Cecil:

I have some expanding foam tape (the foam expands 5:1 in height)that I was thinking of putting on the lip of a cooler to seal the lid. The tape has adhesive on one side. I think it's time for an experiment, just using well water in case it doesn't work!

Cecil, if you use the plastic bag method it won't spill but will still slosh. How about the cooler inside a larger tub to catch the runover, and maybe a small 12 volt bilge pump in the outer tub to pump it back into the cooler.

Cecil, I have some heavy 36" X 60" bags I use. With only 36 fish, you could fill the bag with 5 gallons of water, fill it with oxygen and the fish would live a week. I air freight up to 100 pounds of tilapia in them and have had no morts for up to 24 hours of bag time.

If the fish have been purged, only enough water to keep them upright is needed.

If you want a couple bags, let me know and I will mail you some.

EDIT: FME, most people use WAY too much water when tranporting fish. Ironically, fish need very little water for transport and if the water height is at the extended dorsal flare, the fish will agiteae the water to keep it satuated. The fish DO need to be well purged or you will need to use an anti-ammonia additive such as SeaChem's Stress Coat. I personally like to use dechlorinated tap water for transport as there is zero ammonia to start with.

Cecil,if you cover the water with a board,you will prevent 90-95 percent of the slosh.Thats how I carry water around my property without spilling most of it.PM sent.

Thanks Tom. Nice talking to you on the phone also.

You could use a couple large kordon breather bags. No air in the bags, just water. I've tested the bags and have shipped some tilapia with them. They've worked quite well.

Cecil,
You plan sounds like a winner, I have seen fish shipped in a very similar way, with a lot less monitoring, as the containers were in airplanes for 12 hours or more.

The cooler will also help maintain the temps. All of the shipping I have seen uses either foam boxes with the oxygen inflated bags or foam insulated boxes filled with water and the oxygen being feed into them.

On this end they pipe the oxygen into the foam insulated boxes which allows them to fill the box/cooler to the brim with water. They ship that set up by train for about 9 hours, then break it down into oxygen filled plastic bags which are placed in foam boxes for the plane ride.

Might try 3 bags that fit in the cooler or several coolers and more bags, all your eggs in one basket sort of thing.

remember...
If you get Tom on the phone and he annoys you, he can be readily fired

Tom was anything but annoying.

Sorry Brettski,I didnt quite catch your mailing adress.

Tom:

He's about 500 ft. East of the railroad tracks.

(snitch)

Cecil, are these Pumkinseeds actual Long Ears???, if so Id like more info about them, perhaps you could pick up some for me and Ill meet you in Northern Ohio, perhaps cut your gas costs down, just a thought, Id love to have some in the backyard aquarium...8^)

Salmonid

I'll be collecting Longears next summer from a few Missouri Ozarks cold streams. They are the brightest I've ever seen. Make an awesome aquarium fish.

Nope not Longears (Lepomis megalotis). They are pumpkinseeds (Lepomis gibbosus).

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We did a dry run (maybe I should say wet run) of using a large plastic bag with oxygen today when Esshup came to get some leftover bluegills from the production pond. Turns out it doesn't work very well. Too much plastic to bunch up and get your hands around to fill with oxygen.

Cecil,

I am not really sure what to do about your sloshing problem, but I have to travel about 1 in a half hours to my pond when transporting fish and I use otabs for oxygen. 1 Otab will last for a few hours. They are quite amazing little tables. I got mine at http://www.otabs.com. They are about the size of a 50 cent piece and your get like 36 tablets for 23 bucks. I have transported as many as 400 shiners in an 18 gallon bucket using only 1 otabs for the hour and a half drive. They also work great for aquairums if you have a power outage and need to get oxygen into your aquairum until the power comes back on.

Thanks RC 51.

That is incredibly slick. It almost seems too easy.

So how many otabs for a 10 hour trip, 100 gallons of water, and 100 BG? Or is 100 gallons of water (150 gallon stock tank 2/3 full) to much water?

I dont know about the otabs,but for a 10 hour trip,you better ice down a 30 pack.

I filled the cooler approx 80% with well water and drove over the back roads (stopping, starting, turning,etc. with a manual tramsmission car)and while I could hear the water hitting the lid as it sloshed (VW TDI Wagon), I didn't spill any out the lid of the cooler. A litle bit weeped out after 45 minutes, and I know how to fix that problem. I think this route is the way to go for smaller groups of fish if the plastic bag/o2 doesn't work.

When we harvested fish out before the fish kill, Big Brandon came, as well as a policeman (undercover)and fished out lots of fish. They both put them in coolers with little square battery aerators. The were able to move them a few hours away without losing any. Big Brandon reports that they all made it, are feed trained now, really are pigs and fat!!!!!!!!!