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?
