I'd like to shop around for a few new fish, but our only "local" LFS has offered some really bad advice and suggestions in the past. We live in a very remote area, and the next nearest place is several hours away in any direction! I'll be going to Green Bay for a weekend next month, about 4-5 hours away (I think). Would it be feasible to do any fish shopping, or would transporting them home safely be a real feat?
I'm about 1 1/2 hours away from most of our petstores. I can get away with telling them where I'm going and they will use a larger than normal bag and pump it up with O2. I've yet to lose a fish on the ride home. The longer the trip the more stress you will put on the fish. I would suguest having someone with you to hold the fish, rather than letting the bag roll/slosh arround in the back seat. Keeping it in the dark will help (use a paper bag or opaque plastic container). I'm sure if your cars heater works, and you use it, the fish won't get cold enough to die. Of course i'm not giving you a guarentee, just some ideas. I've never tried to go that long in transit and worry constantly that my 1 1/2 hr. drive will cause the untimely death of a new family member.
Try using one of those big, disposable styrofoam coolers half filled with de-chlorinated water. They will really slow the temp loss down. Don't forget to carry it from the bottom! Would a tank heater hooked to one of those cigarette lighter power inverters work to keep the water temp up?
I would say you should definitely be able to do it because the fish probably endured a much longer ordeal than that just to get to your LFS... Anyway, i'd ask for larger than normal bags, and probably double bag them too, just to be safe, so you don't have a leak on the road. Fill the bags with O2 if they offer that (some places don't) and bring your own little styrofoam cooler to put them in to keep them further insulated and in the dark for the journey home.
When I had to move my fish from Philadelphia to Florida I stuck all the dwarf cichlids into 2.5 gallon buckets from Home Depot that had water tight lids. The buckets were in the painting department, probably cost all of $4 with the lids. These were perfect for getting the fish all of the 1000miles/20 hours in one peice. I 'stocked' at 4 fish in a half full bucket, added some AmQuel/Novaqua to keep them calm and ammonia issues down, plopped in some live plants (you could use plastic).. which further helps with stress issues. Dont worry about air pumps or heaters.. they should be fine without either of these. Once you get the fish from the Petstore its just a matter of not driving like a maniac and making the water slosh around a whole lot. Hope that helps some!
>Sarah
You can certainly do this. If you have money to spare, you may even buy some of those little pocket warmers they sell. Outdoor stores usually sell them to go into special socks and pockets for people that do Outdoorsy stuff in winter (Deer season). I'd go with double bagged, large bags, a small styrofoam cooler and one of those pocket warmers if you intend to not have the heater on for some reason (and why, I cannot fathom!).
FWIW - I just spoke to a friend in the Green Bay area and she said they reached the double digits today, but with the wind, it still feels like -6. Brrrrr. Good luck!
Hope that helps some!