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How Long Will Shrimp Survive in post?

Joined
27 Oct 2009
Messages
2,919
Location
Cumbria
Had a bit of a disaster with some cherries :( I bought 10 off ebay and got them delivered to where I work on next day delivery. I was late getting to work this morning (long story) and just missed the post. The person in the unit next door said they never came to the door and never left anything with them not even posted a card to say there was a parcel. I emailed the seller who said they were posted yesterday and everybody else had got theirs. I rang my local sorting office who said there were no parcels left there for me but the driver may have took it back to their depot in the next town and deliver it again in the morning. I tried ringing them but it was already shut :twisted:

I guess now if they do get here in the morning they've already spent 2 nights in whatever they were sent in and I'm picturing it being pretty cold in the depot over night. How robust are they, could they still be ok in the morning and do I have an argument with royal mail for not leaving a card?

Not sure how they were labelled up from the sender or if you are allowed to send live stock through the post.
 
Providing you can get them tomorrow they should be just fine. Cherries are pretty hardy. They will be pale when you get them through stress. Take plenty of time to acclimatise them to ensure you don't temperature shock them. :)
 
Hi, I would say there is a 50/50 chance of them being ok. If they are all alive then I would spend extra time acclimatising them as I could imagine they will be quite stressed. Cherries are pretty tough but not sure if they will survive two cold nights in a row but I guess if they've been packed well then they won't get quite as cold.
I would have thought that royal mail would of put a card through the door I've never known them not do this. I think you are allowed to send inverts through the post but not fish, I could be wrong though.
I hope they arrive with you in the morning safely!
 
Yeah I really hope they are ok, not from a money spent point of view I just feel guilty about not making it this morning. Seems odd the royal mail didn't leave a card. If the seller had emailed me a bit sooner I could have got down and checked. Probably should have done it anyway :( never mind can't live in should have could have land. There is a chance they might not have made the morning post. They were coming from surrey and I live about as far north as it gets but I guess either way they still left on Monday so nothing gained there. Rest assured if they make it I will be acclimatising them one drop at a time even if it takes all day.
 
They should be fine. What about the tracking number? If there was an attempt of delivery it would show it.
Special rm delivery 1in 100 is not next day from my experience. I have never complained, you would not also once you see the form to fill in :wideyed:
 
The postman left a packet of cherry red shrimps in my shed without informing us & after 6 days of trying to track down where they were in the postal system I found them - in my shed!
Of the 20 ordered, 19 still lived & I still have the descendants now.
This happened last December!
 
Thanks for the words of encouragement guys :) sitting now waiting like an A&E unit with my lock up front door open. Warmed the room up bucket and airline tube at the ready. I did a 50% water change yesterday and the tanks been cycling for about 2 months.
I'll keep ya'll posted.
 
:) Still no sign of the post yet! I actually found myself thinking to myself a few mins ago, come on shrimp you can make it your nearly there! :oops:
 
They're here, didn't expect them coming like this but they are all moving at least :thumbup:
8073453656_5f21fff553.jpg
shrimp2 by AWB70, on Flickr

8073453612_365310eeb4.jpg
shrimp by AWB70, on Flickr

The postman said they didn't come yesterday so my conscience is clear. Expected them in a bigger container so I will have to keep topping this up then transfer them to a jug or something before putting in the tank I guess.
 
Glad they landed ok for you - nothing worse than not knowing. A couple of years ago i bought about £100 worth of shrimp from Germany on a 2-3 day courier service. Was pacing the room waiting for the delivery, and they were just fine!

The shrimp do look pale, but they should colour up after a few days once settled in the tank.
 
Cheers, I gradually introduced them to the water over 3or4 hours before dumping them in the tank. I didn't see any of them for a while then on mass they all started running about wild as if they were all waiting for the other :D



They've already got some colour in their faces. Happy man again, thanks all. 8) Just need some moss for them to play in now.
 
Not 100% sure, I have seen videos of them after a water change when food gets added and they do go rather wild. If I'd spent two nights in the pitch black and freezing cold then put into a tropical warm tank with plenty of plants I think I would be running round all excited :D
 
They can get a bit erratic like that when under stress but, normally they will just move around in a relaxed manner.
Cherry shrimps are really easy going, easy to breed & great additions for a planted tank.
Many of the more colourful shrimps for sale are not necessarily difficult to keep but, you can see by the amount of reported deaths on this forum that, they are also very easy to kill!
I have lost my fair share of CRS & I now keep them in a dedicated tank however my cherry shrimps just keep going through thick & thin. My original stocking have produced hundreds of descendants that I have passed on to friends & they in turn have had great success.
 
Ok ill keep an eye on them today and see if they calm down a bit. Hopefully they were a bit excitable just getting used to the water. I run my tanks at 26 degrees. I keep both the same as the intention is to use my little 5 gall shrimp tank to breed stock and grow them big enough to put in my 30 gall at home when they're big enough to escape predation from the fish in there.
Perhaps the seller kept them at lower temp and following a couple of cold nights it may be the highest temp they have ever experienced in their lives. I also add half a mil of EC to their tank and they might not have tasted that before. I did have some amanos in my big tank for a couple of years and they seemed ok at them temps but they were full adults when I got them.
 
Looks like either 2 molts or dead ones in the tank when the lights cam on today. I have been here before though and they've turned up. Not sure how likely it would be for them to come from a stressful couple of days and molt straight away? Is there actually anyway of telling the difference between a molt and a corpse? The Amanos did this a few times but they were a lot bigger.
Other than that the ones I can see seemed to have settled down a lot.
 
AverageWhiteBloke said:
Looks like either 2 molts or dead ones in the tank when the lights cam on today. I have been here before though and they've turned up. Not sure how likely it would be for them to come from a stressful couple of days and molt straight away? Is there actually anyway of telling the difference between a molt and a corpse? The Amanos did this a few times but they were a lot bigger.
Other than that the ones I can see seemed to have settled down a lot.

Chances are they are moults, especially in the warmer water which speeds up growth.
I recently added 10 cherry shrimp to my tank and there were moults the next day too....i know that as i counted all the shrimp :)
 
Chances are they are moults, especially in the warmer water which speeds up growth.
I hope your right mate. :thumbup: Been trying to count up myself, so far I have seen a definite 6 but I have a cave with plant roots growing all over it so some could be kicking about in there especially if they have molted. I remember my amanos used to do a disappearing act when they were molting.
Got up this morning and checked in my fish stuff cabinet and realised I didn't have any food for them :oops: not much along the lines of a LFS round here other than commoner garden stuff but managed to get hold of some Hikari Crab cuisine from a local shop. Put 2 pellets in and they seem to be tucking into it. Apologies for the phone picture quality.
8076812403_cdb6035fbb.jpg
shrimp feeding by AWB70, on Flickr
 
look like theyre enjoying it.....i havnt fed my CRS since i got them and theyre doing great, saving me a fortune! :lol:
 
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