Victoria Blue World Aquarium WYSIWYG review
 

Received my corals today and I thought I would post a few pics and info for others. I'll try to keep it short.

The box arrived in great shape and was impressed with the fact that it was a new unused box and well suited for its job. The styrofoam inner box was 1.5" thick which is double the thickness of any other suppliers I have used in the past. The corals were bagged, not once, not twice but FOUR items each. one might have been five.

Now some of the fun facts..There was water in the styro box but not really sure where it come from, the bags still had lots of water left in them. The loose water soaked the heat packs and seemed to kill any heat they had as they were cold, not cool to the touch when I opened the box. The corals looked okay but the bags were cold, cold, cold. I threw a thermometer in one bag and the temp was 54-56 degrees.. Due to the fact I knew it was going to be cold I checked to see if they wanted to delay shipment but they reassured me that the coral cost plus shipping would be refunded if DOA so I said go ahead. The one Lobo was looking a bit odd and after a closer look something was lodged in one of its mouths. I got a set of tweezers and eased out a peice of........carbon lol, never seen that before. It was minus 23 degrees when I picked up the package at Fedex this morning and it would have been nice to see how things would have differed if the heat packs weren't doused. Both corals were good sized Lobo brains and after about ten hours in my tank are looking in good shape.

In conclusion I would say a positive experience and will be buying again, just on a warmer day. :lol:


The box they arrived in...



http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/d...ps479e93b8.jpg


Box opened


http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/d...ps9a10db47.jpg



Checking temp



http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/d...psdd4fdcc0.jpg



Carbon pellet in mouth



http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/d...ps5957745e.jpg



Offending pellet...


http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/d...ps7fc3ee88.jpg

Hi Jeff, thanks for the review! I'm glad the corals arrived okay despite the extreme cold in your area. This is useful information that we will use to improve our shipping methods. Thanks again for the order, and let us know if we can do anything else for you. :)

You're welcome, just keep the awesome LPS colonies coming in. Your WYSIWYG pics in my case were very accurate which was nice.

Always tape heat packs to the inside of the lid. Of course this only works if shippers pay attention to up arrows but none the less good practice. Also many suppliers place a few granules of carbon in each bag for good measure.

I recieved my corals today and the water was quite cold as well. Packaging was impeccible but I think maybe one or two heat packs inside the black bag which wrapped the clear plastic ones along with a couple on the lid may help a bit.

Corals seem to be okay though so that is good!

I like how BWA have that design inside the styrofoam box, that caught my eye. :D

Martin & I received our order today as well. I was not there when it arrived but from what I seen packages was great & I thought the little thank you note on the inside of the lid was priceless.

Now the heat pack debate...... IMO & this is both mine & martins opinion, the heat packs should be place right under the bags holing the frags. If its on the lid it's heating nothing but the lid. That's all I have to say on that.

WHAT I REALLY LIKED......is the customer service especially from Spencer & Dan. Had a slight issue when Martin & I ordered one of the same frags, Spencer emailed & problem solved. Tonight I received an email from Dan asking how the order was. GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE hands down.

The carbon pellet in the bag was not the odd thing for me it's the fact the crazy coral seemed to be attempting to eat it.. Hard to imagine it worked its way in there in transport but who knows. I somewhat agree with Greg and Martin about heat pack placement but unless they are water proofed when on the bottom they would be useless in no time as not many shipments arrive completely dry. With a small confined space they still should provide enough heat when taped on the lid.

And Greg is right communication with the guys at Blue World was very good

If the heat pack where tossed into a bag & put right under the coral it would help greatly. I had an Oder from fragalot that I instructed him to pack this way when it was -30 here last yr and the temp in the bags with the frags was actually pretty good.

Thanks for the comments everyone!

We're going to run a series of experiments over the next couple days with our boxes and heat packs, but our main concern is actually over heating the boxes. The temperature at the origin of the package (in our case, relatively warm Victoria) will play a big part in the temperature fluctuations inside the packaging.

I haven't had a lot of experience shipping livestock...but I have been on the receiving end of hundreds of livestock shipments. Sometimes they are shockingly cold...and often turn out fantastically. Recently I had a shipment of fish that arrived nice and warm (with more heat packs than usual), close to tank temp, and experienced especially high DOAs. My suspicion is that heat packs can cause a shipment to peak at dangerously high temperatures without careful consideration.

We want to provide the highest possible quality of livestock and care, and we will continue to refine our methods until we achieve perfection. Of course all feedback is helpful and appreciated!

Definitely have to say this was the best packed shipment of corals I have ever received. They were bagged 5 times and the carbon pellets were a good touch too to soak up any nasties that accumulate during shipping. All corals doing well!!

However I have noticed this trend lately of taping the heat pack to the lid and I have been wondering why.

Heat rises!

Heat is transferred in one of 4 ways:
Radiation - Needs to be infra red heat (which a heat pack is not)
Conduction - Air (and packing peanuts) are very poor conductors of heat.
Convection - A convection current cannot start inside the box because heat rises and the heat source is at the top.
Advection - Doesn't happen because nothing inside the box is moving.

If you want the best use of a heat pack with also protecting the corals place the heat packs in the center of the bottom of the box, put some packing peanuts on top of them or some Styrofoam less than size of the footprint of the box. The corals can then go on top of that. That way they are not touching the heat pack and the heat back is free to create a convection current inside the box. The warm air will rise up over the corals and cool air sink to the heat packs. Thus the corals stay warmer. If the heat pack never gets hotter than the water temperature then the corals can go right on top of them. Then you get convection and conduction! :biggrin:

That thermal conductivity class did come in handy after all haha. Lord Kelvin would be proud haha we went to the same university although he died 92 years before I got there. :neutral:

In reality it makes no difference where the heat pack goes as your main concern is the heat loss through conduction through the insulated box resulting from a temperature differential. There should be little to no air in a properly packed box and it should also be air tight. The heat loss will be the same regardless whether it's placed on the bottom, side or top. If you're attempting to make free convection flow patterns in your shipping boxes then you're doing it wrong. The temperature in the box and the bags of corals should and will eventually be the same during shipping. Heat packs do get hotter than safe temperatures for livestock so direct contact of the packs and bags containing livestock is not recommended. BWA is correct, the bigger issue with shipping is actually too hot, not too cold.

They are placed at the top simply because it's the least likely place to get wet. 9 times out of ten the bottom of shipping boxes arrive wet or flooded. No other reason, it's just common sense.

On a side and completely unrelated note, three types of heat transfer exist, advection is just a form or convection (forced convection). Radiant heat transfer occurs in all objects provided there is temperature difference, so a heat pack certainly does transfer heat through radiation.

Something else to consider is that the heat packs need a supply of oxygen for the chemical reaction to take place and create said heat. I the box is air tight the oxygen will get used up heat producing reaction will stop.

Coming from a (not really) competitor.... the packing methods they used are top notch, with regards to the heat pack placement, this is industry standard, in such a small space placement isnt critical, if you were to place it under the bags, you would have over heating for the first few hours which would be worse for the shipment. Having a shipment a little colder isnt a huge deal with coral (not with fish). I like seeing the thick boxes and the heat packs, this is what you want from a supplier. Seeing as how the shipments made it, and are flourishing is the key. This is the end game for any hobbyist, a healthy thriving coral!

Cheers,

Steve

Hmm interesting, maybe suppliers should start drilling some air holes in their boxes :crazy:
The amount of O2 needed is minuscule at best, boxes should be sealed air tight, allowing air in would be quite foolish and counterproductive.

don't argue with Steve, he knows a lot about "hot air" !! :lol:

This is true, I'm also good at blowing smoke up certain places