Kordon Breather Bags

[Bilbo]

Could anyone shed some light on some good ways to ship these? Im about to start shipping rams with them in addition to my old school method. Styrofoam lined box with edges taped good? I heard the bags need to be wrapped in news paper else they won't breath properly?

[Ryan]

They need to be wrapped in newspaper to prevent them from sticking to each other. If the outside of a breather bag gets wet, it tends to cling together. If you had a leak, it's more likely the bags would stick together and then wouldn't be able to breathe properly.

I line the inside of a shipping box with styrofoam, tape the corners/creases to try and hold any water in that may leak, put down a thin layer of paper towels, then roll/wrap each breather bag in one layer of newspaper (for small bags I tear a sheet of newspaper in half so there's just enough to cover the breather bag) and arrange them in the box. I can fit six or eight small breather bags in a medium USPS Priority Mail box with styro, depending on how much water I put per bag.

Then I fold up a piece or two of newspaper to lay on top of the bags and keep them from moving around. The idea is to pack everything loosely so that oxygen can get in and around the bags. Otherwise, the fish will suffocate. Unfortunately last year when I shipped some fry to Larry in Georgia, I forgot to cut the hole in the styro lid where I usually tape my heat pack. The heat pack sucked all the available oxygen out of the box and suffocated my fry.

[Bilbo]

Thanks! This helps a lot. Do you use 40 hour heat packs or the longer lasting ones?

[Ryan]

I use 72-hour ones.

[Bilbo]

Gotcha. I ordered lots of different kinds. I called a guy at Kordon today and he didn't think a hole for the heat pack was necessary however I am more inclined to take your advice on that. He said heat should flow through the styro and card board box freely even fully sealed and taped. I am HIGHLY skeptical of that therefore I am going to run two test boxes. One fully sealed and the other with an air hole through the styro lid.