Is Ammonia the biggest risk to shipped fish?

[elorablue]

This question is in advance of me being shipped a couple of pigmy filefish. Their journey in the bag(s) will be roughly 20 hours to my doorstep.
It would seem to me that I would want to get them out of that toxic soup asap and forego any sort of drip acclimation and just temp acclimate.
These will be my first online fish, my other fish I drove them home.
Am I way off on this thought process.

 

[ZoWhat]

No....Using FedEx is the biggest risk to shipping fish

Union worker (left).
Management (right)


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[Tamberav]

I don’t drip shipped fish or try not to with any fish. I just match the salinity of fresh SW and float and add them.

If salinity is off and you must drip then you can still have salt and RO on hand to match water quickly by bringing the salinity down in a separate bucket and add them to there then drip from that point on.

 

[HeyJay]

Last order from liveaquaria was sent without a heat pack, even though the temperature dipped into the 40s. I think that did more damage than ammonia.

 

[elorablue]

I don’t drip shipped fish or try not to with any fish. I just match the salinity of fresh SW and float and add them.

If salinity is off and you must drip then you can still have salt and RO on hand to match water quickly by bringing the salinity down in a separate bucket and add them to there then drip from that point on.

So you believe that salinity is also a vital factor and dripping is the best method to combat this?

 

[jaganshi066]

Anyone have pictures of how ammonia burn looks? Do the gills get red?

 

[elorablue]

Last order from liveaquaria was sent without a heat pack, even though the temperature dipped into the 40s. I think that did more damage than ammonia.

How can they do that? sheesh that's shabby.
I do trust the shipper completely to package the fish properly, and at this time of year heat would be more of an issue, but I certainly understand the temperature concerns.