From: dan@resonex.com (Dan Kell)
Subject: Re:  Saltwater Aquarium
Organization: Resonex Inc., Sunnyvale CA
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 14:59:27 GMT

In article <21JUL199209022024@venus.lerc.nasa.gov> fssmith@venus.lerc.nasa.gov (Greg Smith) writes:
>In article <1992Jul20.081636.5179@resonex.com>, dan@resonex.com (Dan Kell) writes...
>> (crap deleted--) )
>>For damsel to be a buck or two means one of two things. Either people are 
>>raising them in tanks or pools commercially. Or they import so many that the 
>>50 to 80% mortality rate doesn't mean anything. 
>
>How did you get such definitive wisdom?  Perhaps import methods have improved
>and their survival rate is higher?  
>

I don't profess to have the definitive wisdom on current import methods. I
only know how things were done when I was in the business and the only 
improvement in import methods is that planes are faster now.

This is basically what is done. Depending on where the fish are collected or
raised the fish are caught out of the tank and put in bags. If they are raised
on site this is only the first trauma they under go. If they are collected
they get dumped into some temporary tank under they have enough to ship. That's
two traumas and they aren't even into a shipping bag yet. This is only counting
the trauma of being caught and stored temporarily. This doesn't count the
boat ride in, storage the collector may do, lack of food, overheating, etc.
before they get to an importer. Once the fish are placed in a bag to ship
the bag is inflated with an O2 tank. If the bag is 24 inches tall there will
be about 6 inches of water in the bag and the rest of the bag will be air
space. The O2 is an effort to make the air in the bag last longer for the 
fish. *Hopefully* the plane won't be delayed, the fish won't get lost, the
plane won't be late, the heater in the baggage compartment won't fail, etc.
They don't ship one fish to a bag either. After the bags are filled with 
fish, water and air they are usually put into foam boxes and sent via plane
to the destination. Provided the plane leaves on time, the fish don't spend
too much time in the sun, whatever, they arrive at the destination. (BTW I
flew fish twice. Both times the airlines allowed me to stay with my fish
and care for them until they were ready to go to the plane. So the airlines
try to be accomodating) Once at the destination, the fish may go into a tank
for storage again. Definitely they will be de-bagged and dead, sick, injuried
fish will be tossed. When ready to ship they get bagged again and drove, flown
whatever to the shop that ordered them. Most shops will quarantine new fish
for a while. This is also for various reasons. Fish get sick from the travel,
the food, (yes even fish don't like airline food. :-) ), poor handling and
just shock.  All in all this is some pretty tough stuff for a little fish
to deal with. Even healthy fish will die for no reason. 

The method above was used all through the 50's, 60' and 70's. I quit raising
fish when I started college and never went back to it. Up until 1985 I had
four tanks going constantly. 100, 60, 20 and a 10 gallon tank in my kids 
room. (Lots of guppies, kids are hard on fish!) I spent maybe a half hour
per month per tank on the 100 and 60 cleaning. Ten minutes or so every
other week on the 20 and at least a half hour a week on the 10. Part of
this was due to my kids overfeeding and playing in the tank. (Try explaining
to a five year that the fish really don't want to be petted! They do learn
eventually, they just make you crazy in the process. B-) )

I would never try to dissuade someone from having fish, especially salts. They
are simply the most beautiful of all the fish. I really enjoyed my fish. I 
could sit for hours and watch them. And did in college, no TV! I rescued an
ocelot from the pound and had to put latches on my tank cover to keep 
Charlie out of my tanks. He would sit and watch the fish and lick his lips!
Fish will get you through a bad day better than anything going. There is
nothing more peaceful than sitting back and watching your fish. Except maybe
diving and watching the fishees!

I only caution people that starting up a salt tank isn't just a matter of
dumping some water into a tank and adding fish. It is a lot of time and 
effort to get a salt tank going. And a worry. Who's going to feed the
fish while your gone on vacation? I'm sorry that I seem a little negative.
I just think that a salt tank is too important to just jump into it.
Besides not everything needs to be in a cage to appreciate it. 



 
-- 
Dan Kell                  
email to dan@resonex.com
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."   A. Einstein