Shipping mistake is having plants and fish arrive while on vacation!

[Luananeko]

So due to a shipping delay, it looks like my 4 juvenile american flag fish and 2 mats of dwarf baby tears are going to arrive while I'm out of town... If they follow their usual shipping schedule they'll arrive on Thursday or Friday, but I won't be home until the following Tuesday night. I've already tried calling and emailing the shipper to ask them to delay shipment for a week, but haven't had any responses yet... I think it's time to plan for the worst and hope for the best. My husband will be home to handle the delivery, but he has no aquarium keeping knowledge and hates contact with "fish water". I'm trying to figure out the minimum instructions needed to give him to keep things alive and out of trouble until I get home...

I think I've figured out a plan for the flagfish (acclimate and put them into floating breeder chambers until I can get home and monitor how they do when loose with my guppies), but I'm not sure what to tell him to do with the dwarf baby tears... My last shipment of these mats from the shipper pretty much all died (dropped nearly all their leaves as soon as they touched the tank water, then proceeded to turn to mush over the next 3 days) even when I was there to plant them carefully and up the ferts for their adjustment, so I'm worried these will be another loss as well... I don't expect him to be able or willing to plant them, so should I just have him float them in the tank and hope for the best?

 

[jetajockey]

I'd float them. It sounds like you have a good plan of action. Good call on segregating the flagfish till you can observe them. They can be very hit and miss community fish.

 

[Luananeko]

Good call on segregating the flagfish till you can observe them. They can be very hit and miss community fish.

Yeah... Found that out the hard way when I tried with the single adult male flagfish last time. Tried various tricks (time-outs in floating chamber, stuffing his face, etc) for a good two and a half weeks to get him to cooperate before giving up and rehoming him with my upstairs neighbor... I warned them about him before giving him to them, but they didn't keep a close eye after adding him and he outright killed one of their GloFish danios and ripped the fins badly enough on two others that they ended up dying later. Managed to do all that damage in one night on a fish type that's usually fast enough to stay out of trouble.

Here's hoping the juvies are less aggressive when they grow up with the fish and have their own kind to chase...