KalK, You and others make some good points. I agree that a major part of the cost of the fish is the air freight costs, freight rebates from the airlines back to the exporters, duties etc. It also is true that aside from cyanide a major cause of the high mortalities is transit time and the fact that fish are packed too tightly. Yet, the pet industry in the United States has not funded any studies to try to alleviate these problems. In contrast, Singapore (which is a major supplier of freshwater fish and reshipped marines to the USA) has been doing research on these topics.
Some ideas that might help. Novalek in Hayward CA sells Breathing bags. These bags have a plastic first developed by the Russian space program. I have evaluated these bags with a Philippine exporter of net-caught fish (Asian Marine Resources International-AMRI). We packed about 30 fish each in separate breathing bags with pieces of styrofoam to separate the bags inside a styrofoam box. Then we packe a second box in the same way. The two styrofoam boxes were packed inside a larger breathing bag and everything was packed inside a cardboard shipping box (the normal way of shipping fish from the Philippines). Each bag containing fish also contained Amquel and Nitrofurazone.
We left the box for 80 hours and then reopened the box. Nornally, if the fish had been packed in regular bags, one would expect the fish to be highly stressed or dead. Instead, we found the fish all alive, and looking healthy. I mesured the pH in the bags (as soon as they were opened). The pH was 7.3. Normally, after about 40-50 hours in regular bags the pH falls to about 5-6. The fish were dumped into a pan (in the same water) and observed for about a half hour. They showed no signs of stress and no mortality. They were then netted and put into tanks containing seawater at pH 8.3. All were alive after 5 days. AMRI maintained some marines up to three weeks in breathing bags (not inside the boxes with the surrounding breathing bag).I have also received similar reports from others who have used breathing bags. T
he bags are somewhat thin, and there are other problems that need to be solved. But, with a little research, I am confident they could be solved. With breathing bags, one could get lower freight rates (since the delivery time does not need to be guaranteed within 48 hours by the airlines). The pet trade needs to do research along these lines if they want to reduce DOAs and improve shipping practices.
Peter Rubec