How I ship frags....

CoralGeeks · Jul 13, 2008

I use to ship mass quanities of corals and frags from my online store that I had. I learned what not to do real quick. This is the best way I found without there being any hassles or loss of life. I no longer have an online business, so I dont care a bit to tell people my methods of practice.

I use polystyrene shipping coolers from MrBoxOnline, I use the 6x4x4 mini cooler if Im just shipping a few small frags. Its light weight with 1" think insulation and not to mention pretty cheap and you dont have to assemble anything. This box will hold 3-4 frags the way I ship them.

Next is the easiest and probaly best kept secret in this hobby. Anybody who has ever got anything from me, knows what I use for shipping coral frags. I use specimen cups (urine sample cups). They hold 4.5oz of water, leak proof and offer a lot of protection for the frags. LCM(lake charles manufacturing) is where I buy mine from, you can buy just one, or you can buy 1000, whatever suits your purpose.

After you have your shipping coolers and specimen cups, you can either use old newspaper or bubble wrap for added security and to keep things from moving around and getting damaged in the shipping cooler.

Hope this outs you all out! If you have any questions, feel free to ask away!

jc5205 · Jul 13, 2008

Thanks for the info.......

oceanparadise1 · Jul 13, 2008

Nice!

rarelyseriousb · Jul 13, 2008

awesome. thanks for the links.

renegade545 · Jul 13, 2008

Just coruious, but do you fill the cups all the way with water or leave some air in it?

Thanks for sharing.

CoralGeeks · Jul 14, 2008

renegade545 said:
Just coruious, but do you fill the cups all the way with water or leave some air in it?

Thanks for sharing.

I put about 80-90% water in there. I also only ship priority overnight, less risk. Coral dont have a high o2 demand like fish do.

revhtree · Jul 14, 2008

Nice info! Thanks for sharing.

EliteReefs · Jul 14, 2008

CoralGeeks said:
Next is the easiest and probaly best kept secret in this hobby. Anybody who has ever got anything from me, knows what I use for shipping coral frags. I use specimen cups (urine sample cups)

As most people know I have been doing this for oerv 5 years now and a few vendors have started following suit. I remember when i first started doing it it was posted all over the different forums by people. many said it was bad but soon came around very quickly when the possitive results were made very clear. MUCH MUCH better then bags. cost a bit more but well worth it

CoralGeeks · Jul 14, 2008

EliteReefs said:
As most people know I have been doing this for oerv 5 years now and a few vendors have started following suit. I remember when i first started doing it it was posted all over the different forums by people. many said it was bad but soon came around very quickly when the possitive results were made very clear. MUCH MUCH better then bags. cost a bit more but well worth it

It got to the point to where 1 out of 3 boxes would leak. I think it was more from the carrier handling then the actual bags being a problem.

As for offsetting the cost, you have to replace two orders as a result of bags leaking, that would cover the cost of a case of specimen cups depending on the coral you had to replace.

With you being in the industry, Im sure you get a kick when people complain about having to pay for shipping. I offered $40 flat rate shipping ox included, and rarily was shipping less then $40, it was even as high as $128 to ship from TN to OH, granted it was a 18lb group order that wasnt close to an airport for air freight shipping to be feasible.

EliteReefs · Jul 14, 2008

I offer flat rate shipping of 21.00 over night FedEx to any where in the US so I don’t get shipping complaints lol. Even at that cost I’m willing to admit i STILL make a few bucks on shipping. The key is volume. I ship so much we are able to get incredible rates.

The sad part is even with my prices being the lowest available by far I still get people trying to get disscounts so i know what you mean. Nothing is ever good enough i guess.

i used to pay around 3 cents per bag and would use 3-4 bags per order costing about 12 cents total. the cups i pay about 14 cents each so the cost is really not that much. more yes but like you said well worth it in not having to deal with broken bags

CoralGeeks · Jul 14, 2008

LOL work for fedex or know somebody who works there? I tried to "bribe" a couple of fedex employees to get them on payroll cause I know they get 75% off all shipping. I still shipped a lot and still didnt get great rates. I sold a lot of wholesale though and shipped air frieght via Southwest and American Airlines. Shipping is so much cheaper and they get the product same day, in most cases it was 4hrs from our tanks to theirs.

EliteReefs said:
I offer flat rate shipping of 21.00 over night FedEx to any where in the US so I donâ€™t get shipping complaints lol. Even at that cost Iâ€™m willing to admit i STILL make a few bucks on shipping. The key is volume. I ship so much we are able to get incredible rates.

The sad part is even with my prices being the owest available by far I still get people trying to get disscounts so i know what you mean. Nothing is ever good enough i guess

EliteReefs · Jul 14, 2008

CoralGeeks said:
LOL work for fedex or know somebody who works there? I tried to "bribe" a couple of fedex employees to get them on payroll cause I know they get 75% off all shipping. I still shipped a lot and still didnt get great rates. I sold a lot of wholesale though and shipped air frieght via Southwest and American Airlines. Shipping is so much cheaper and they get the product same day, in most cases it was 4hrs from our tanks to theirs.

nope no bribes. I have nother business and together we ship out more then 1000 packages per month. shipping vendors are more then willing to talk "deals when you get to numbers that high. I just pass that disscount along to my coral business.

aquaman3680 · Jul 14, 2008

EliteReefs said:
nope no bribes. I have nother business and together we ship out more then 15,000 packages per month. shipping vendors are more then willing to talk "deals when you get to numbers that high. I just pass that disscount along to my coral business.

Thats convenient!

CoralGeeks · Jul 14, 2008

EliteReefs said:
nope no bribes. I have nother business and together we ship out more then 15,000 packages per month. shipping vendors are more then willing to talk "deals when you get to numbers that high

True, I think the most we ever did was probally close to 1000 a month, thats counting both locations but we still used the same shipping account.

Our retail side of it slowly dwindled as the economy did and I took a trip to Indo and was talking to a supplier over there who does mariculturing, and they offered me a job that was too good to turn down, so we had a huge closeout sale and closed up shop, and now Im off to better things!

Kigs! · Jul 14, 2008

CoralGeeks said:
Next is the easiest and probaly best kept secret in this hobby. Anybody who has ever got anything from me, knows what I use for shipping coral frags. I use specimen cups (urine sample cups). They hold 4.5oz of water, leak proof and offer a lot of protection for the frags. LCM(lake charles manufacturing) is where I buy mine from, you can buy just one, or you can buy 1000, whatever suits your purpose.

I was wondering where to purchase these, thanks for the link. I almost tore a skin trying to open one of these last time. I'm considering switching from uline bags for LPS or Zoa frags.