Welcome back to the Jack Wattley Discus hatchery. This is Gabe Posada, and today we are going to be talking about how we bag the discus for shipping, what it takes to make sure they stay alive during travel, and the precautions necessary to ship fish. We are responsible for the fish until they make it into your tank, so we take extra care, as you will see in this article, to make sure every possible complication that could lead to a fish death during shipping is accounted for and covered before they go out.

The Bagging Process

 First of all, once an order comes in we select the fish and extract it from the tank with a net, we then quickly place the fish into the proper bag. Generally, there are three different sizes of fish – small, medium and large, and each size gets its own corresponding size of bag. Every bag has a special liner inside of it to protect the bag from being ripped or punctured by one of the fish’s fins. This is the primary preventative measure we use to help minimize the chances of puncture from inside the bag.

Our next step in the process is to fill the bag with pure oxygen. Once the bag is full we staple it shut in a special way that creates a leak-proof hermetic seal. In the old days, we used to seal the bags with a rubber band, however; we have since found that stapling is more efficient and reliable. After the initial bag is stapled, we then wrap it in two more bags and use a stapling machine that does both at the same time. This ensures that punctures from the outside of the bag are highly unlikely and offer extra layers of protection.

The Boxing Process

Once the bag is properly sealed and stapled, we then put it into a styrofoam and cardboard box. If it is a larger order we place many bags into a much larger box, also made from styrofoam and cardboard. Since these are live tropical fish, we go above and beyond when shipping them to colder climates or during naturally colder times of the year. During the winter months, we place 40-hour heat packs into the box to make sure that the fish make it to their destination safely, and the cold weather that they may encounter does not affect them.

What If My Fish Arrives Dead?

Although we have years of experience in shipping tropical fish and take every possible precaution, anything can happen and sometimes they don’t make it alive. We are shipping live tropical fish after all! If this happens, however, don’t worry, all you have to do is get in touch with us, send us a picture and we will be more than happy to either replace your fish or give you a full refund.

Want to Learn More?

Well, that is it! Our bagging process for shipping the tropical discus fish is really pretty simple. We hope this gives you a better idea of how we make sure all of our fish get safely to your home, directly from our hatchery. As always, we truly hope you guys enjoyed this and please keep the questions and comments coming.

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