Guide: How to Bag Fish for Transport


How to Bag Fish for Transport

You will obviously need to start out with a bag which is the appropriate size for the fish you are transporting. My lovely assistant in the photos below is a betta, so I used a fairly small bag.

Step 1

Place water in the bag. It has to be enough water that the fish will be covered when you put it in the bag, but you also need to leave enough room for air. Air is actually the most important part. Here is a photo of my lovely assistant after I added her to the bag. She was only going on a short trip. For a longer trip I would have used less water than is in this picture. You would be surprised how little water the bettas that travel from Asia are shipped in!


Step 2

Once the water and fish are in the bag comes the tricky part - sealing as much air as possible in the bag. Obviously if you are using bottled oxygen, that will inflate the bag just fine (don't over-inflate or your bag may burst!).

If you are not using oxygen, there is a method of sealing the bag that traps a fair bit of air in there.

Rest the bottom of the bag on a flat surface and hold the top of the bag so the weight of the water makes it hang down in a straight line. You will see that the bag has a natural crease on either side. Rather than holding those 2 top corners and working from there, I find that you get a better result if you actually fold the bag so that it gets 2 new corners, without seams, and the seams now meet in the middle - like this:


Step 3

Once you have hold of the 2 new "corners" of the bag, make a small fold at the top of the bag and carefully keep folding the bag downwards in small folds, like this:


Once you have folded the bag a few times you will find you have trapped a decent pocket if air, and your bag will be inflated (but not over-inflated), something like this:


Step 4

It is now time to fold the 2 corners of the bag over so they meet together, like this:


Step 5

Next, you need to hold the top folds of the bag tightly closed, while you twist the bag tightly from the top to really trap the air inside. Once you have finished twisting the bag should look something like this:


Step 6

Last step is the rubber band (or you can tie the bag off, if you have enough overhang, but if you tie off make sure your knot is very tight or the air will escape).

Here's the finished product! As you can see, it's about 2/3 air and 1/3 water. That is the minimum air/water ratio I aim for when I bag fish. For long trips, I add more air.


Have a practice (fish not necessary!) before you have to do it for real. It gets to be second nature, so much so that I had a hard time trying to describe the steps above, as I now bag fish quickly and without thinking.



Still have more questions about Bagging Fish? Need more information? Swim on over to the forum!

Author: Lisa Norris added: Wednesday 12, July 2006