How long will they last?

[dgin]

I'm planning on buying some livestock (corals, shrimp, and snails) out of state and want to bring them home in a cooler. From the time of purchase until they get into my tank will be about 48 hours or so. Will the livestock survive this or have any detrimental effects?

 

[danmhippo]

Most LFS ship live stock via priority overnight services. Estimating from the time of shipping to your door less than 20 hours.

To extend beyond that time limit, you will need to have aeration device such as battery powered air pumps. You will have to be able to keep the cooler temp constant, or you will have to add a heat pack you can buy at the sporting good store. Tape the heat pad on the inside of the lid. Next you have to worry about the extra volume of ammonia fishes releases due to stress. I would suggest if you see your livestock behaving poorly during the transit, prepare a 5Gal bottle of premixed salt water and bring it with you. You can perform water changes as needed.

Are you flying or driving? All of the above mentioned would not work if you are flying.

 

[dgin]

I'm planning on driving. Since I'm looking at only getting snails, corals, and shrimp, how much ammonia would they produce since they should have a much lower bio-load than fish?