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Transporting Your Fish

How to Transport Your Collected Fish

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Some fish don't mix well with others. Here are some pointers that apply to what kinds of fish you shouldn't mix in your catch bucket and when transporting your fish:
  • Don't mix large carnivorous fish like Triggers, Groupers and Hawkfish with smaller fish. They not only might get eaten or chuck biten out of them, but it scares the smaller fish, which in turn causing even more stress.
  • Don't mix poisonous fish such as Boxfish and some Puffers, with other fish.
  • Don't mix heavy poopers such as Surgeons and Tangs with more sensitive fish.
  • Don't OVERCROWD your bucket or transport container with too many fish.
  • It is best not to mix large sized Triggers, Surgeons, Butterflies and Wrasses of the same or similar species together, especially in small transport containers. Adults will usually fight and can cause significant damage to one another.
Ammonia, lack of oxygen, and fouled water from the fish pooping are the main contributors to causing damage to fish when placing them in a confined, as well as overcrowded containment area. So how can you tell if these things are a problem?
  • Ammonia burn is seen as frayed or burnt off edges on the pectoral and tail fins. As an unseen result, the fishes gills get burnt. If extreme ammonia burn occurs cloudy eyes will result and the pectoral fins will be almost completely burnt off. Effects of ammonia burn will usually be apparent within two days after bringing the fish home.
  • Lack of oxygen is seen from the fish gasping for air, laying on the bottom of the holding container, and can later result in brain damage.
  • Heavy poopers are fish that will introduce a lot of detritus into your transport container water. Naso Tangs are the worst! All Surgeonfish have a long intestinal tract for digesting algae, so they can have a lot of poop in their system. When excited they will start crapping and foul up your water in a second. If you mix these fish with the more sensitive finned fish it will take its toll in a few short minutes. Amazingly, it doesn't take long. Even for the heavy poopers themselves, if the transport water is brown and you can't see the fish, it's too late!
If these three contributing factors are not taken care of, the fish will become sick. If completely ignored, death is inevitable. How quickly damage occurs to the fish in the holding container depends on many variables. Each of these are discussed later in this article.

To address the more sensitive fish species issue, here is a list of Hawaiian fish that have a low tolerance to ammonia burn, in order of most sensitivity.

Many commercial collectors screw up by getting greedy. They think, "If it's in the net, scoop it! I better catch it now while I can, or before someone else does." Too many times the bucket is probably already crowded and yet a few more fish are crammed into it. The collector figures it won't do any harm and if it does, oh well. Of course when the fish get to your local pet shop, if it survives the ordeal, it will have damaged fins, gills and some scale/skin damage resulting in poor health and low survivability. The buyer will care, and so will his/her customers. If you are going to take fish out of the ocean, its better to take a few perfect ones, not a lot of burnt ones.
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