Cross country move...help!

[strangepholker]

So my girlfriend and I are looking at moving from VT to the Portland, OR area in January and wanted some advice for transporting our tank (and livestock). We'll most likely rent a truck/cargo van and will transport our tank, and other essentials that way. However, this trip is going to be in January and its gonna be a long drive (~5-7 days) so that we can drive waaay down south to avoid the nastiest weather.

We've only got one yellow striped maroon clown in our tank right now and don't plan on getting any more till after the big move. We've also got a couple peppermint shrimp, a couple turbo snails and a green-striped mushroom. We're going to drive our water (at least the majority of it), our live sand and LR. Should we have someone here (one of the LFSes is great and would probably help us with this) overnight our clown to us once we get to Portland and have the tank set up? How should we have him packaged up? Are we allowed to ship him without a special license? I assume we should ship him in a large bag inside a styrofoam contain and have the contain within a cardboard box. Anything else we need to do for providing additional heat while he's in transport?

Keeping the clown alive till for the week or so that we'll be travelling across the country won't be a challenge as we have lots of friends/family in VT and have a 20g quarantine tank that won't be making the journey with us.

Any advice is much appreciated. And yes, it really is worth going through the trouble to keep this particular fish, he's awesome!! Thanks,

I am not a shipping expert but it might be best if you just replace the clown altogether once you get to Portland, but thats just a suggestion as I know how much one can become attached to a pet. That would by far be the least risky way to go...

Barring that not being an option get a styrofoam box put some news papers in it for insulation and a couple of heat packs and have someone mail it to you in a large platic specimen bag with lots of air in it and overnight it to you. It should make the trip if it doesnt get held up anywhere.

The live rock and sand should be okay if you can keep the temp at reasonable levels and not drop below 60 for an extended period of time. If it does then a small container of live sand and a pound or two of rock will snap it back into shape when you get it set back up at the new destination. Do plan on cycling the tank again though in all probablity. It may not require a full blown cycle but you will most likely have a mini cycle for a week or two.

If you come up I-5 that time of the year you will more than likely be passing a couple of mountian passes that will require you to have chains with you and available if needed. With that in mind you could take 101 all the way through Oregon but thats slow moving with lots of traffic. I have made the I-5 drive a number of times from SF CA and SD CA with live stock and its a gamble if you get stuck. If you do take that route buy chains before you leave not when you get to the Snow Chain Areas. The prices tripple and thats if they still have your size left and the hotels will probably be booked and double the normal price, so dont count on a hotel if the weather is ugly either.

Good luck with the move and I hope that things work out for you. The above are just some of the experiences I have had thus far to date. I havent lost anything yet though...

[FishinInTheDark]

As usual, good post Expat!

[strangepholker]

Yeah, I know it would be a lot easier to get a new clown after arriving in Portland, but Wiggle (the clown) was our first fish and we've gotten very attached to him so there's no way we could give him up if its possible for us to bring him with us. Thanks for the advice. Do we have any shipping experts out there? Anyone know of heat packs that wont get above about 86 degrees farenheit? or how the heat output from them is controlled for shipping?

[winnona15]

have u bought a house in portland yet
if so get a tank set up and running there and then have your live stack packaged individually i guess.
and drive really fast.
(radar dectector)

[cich1]

alot of online shippers won't ship in cold months in extreme climates because theres no way to regulate temps, is there anyway you could just take him with you? i suggest a container in the cab of the truck with a bettery operated air pump and air stone, take a couple of gallons of fresh salt mix and do regular water changes on the way

[strangepholker]

We certainly could take him in the cab with us, but im worried about maintaining a consistant temp over a period of 5-7 days. I'm not looking for an online shipper to mail me a new fish, I'm looking to have my clown shipped overnight (by a friend) from VT after we have arrived in Portland. Unfortunately, we don't have a place yet, and will be using the same setup we have here so it is not an option to have it setup ahead of time.

Realistically taking them in the cab is the only viable option. Maintaining a stable temp is not as big a deal as keeping it from extremes. I have made 24 hour drives 1400 miles with items as delicate as 24" sharks. You wont be able to bag it that long though so it will have to be something like a 5 gallon bucket with prehaps a gallon of water in it. Take a 5 gallon jug of mixed aged sea water with you though so you can replace the water to keep ammonia and waste levels from getting too high.

Just some things I have done and gotten away with...

[cich1]

I'm not looking for an online shipper to mail me a new fish, I'm looking to have my clown shipped overnight ( i understand that, the point i'm making is that if business that ships livestock for a living can't do it than your friend has a very slim chance of getting it right his first time, you stand a better chance of getting him there alive in the cab of a truck and in a motel at night than in the hold of a cargo jet. heres another option, have someone keep him till the weather is nice and then ship him. i understand your attached to this fish i have fish that i got at 1" that are well over a foot now and have been with me for several years and i wouldn't think of getting rid of them and replacing them with another

[FishinInTheDark]

Okay, I really had to search to find this because I couldn't think what you would call such a device. I finally found it when I did a Google search for "clip aerator fish". If you don't like this one, do the same search and you'll find lots. Anyway, this doodad may really help:

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/product/standard-item.jhtml?id=0023766016643a&navCount=0&cmCat=srchdx&cm_ven=srchdx&cm_ite=srchdx

[strangepholker]

Thanks for the advice guys. If we bring the clown with us he would certainly be in a 5g bucket and as we'll be brining most if not all of the 46g of water from our tank clean replacement water wont be hard to come by. We would also definately use the the battery op air stone.

Do you think its realistic to maintain a steady temp for 5-7 days using heat packs though? IF all goes well with the weather it might be a day or so less than that, but I'm not counting on nice weather going through the Rockies in January.

[strangepholker]

I was googling around and found this converter that I think might solve my problems...

http://store.l-f-l.com/cgi-bin/cp-app.cgi?rrc=N&pg=prod&ref=CAR-ADAPTER&CMP=KNC-goog12


Can anyone think of a reason I couldnt hook up like a 15w heater to this while we're driving cross country to provide consistant heating to my little buddy?

[MikeS]

Yeah, that would probably help....

Those large plastic insulated igloo coolers make excellent transport tanks...with areation and heat, you could keep your livestock going for quite some time in one of those...

Don't forget to take some extra salt water, a week in a cooler and you are going to get some ammonia buildup...

Mike