diff --git a/.ci/build_conda_dist.sh b/.ci/build_conda_dist.sh
index 0080377c598b543fcb0d30044ca00f9b0c54b6ec..131c3c3dd86358d53ab10dbf79b948354e2d711c 100644
--- a/.ci/build_conda_dist.sh
+++ b/.ci/build_conda_dist.sh
@@ -10,6 +10,11 @@ for channel in $CONDA_CHANNELS; do
     conda config  --append channels $channel
 done
 
+# make sure to update fundamental
+# packages from the default channel
+conda update  --yes -c defaults -n base conda
+conda install --yes -c defaults -n base setuptools conda-build
+
 # insert project name/version into meta.yaml
 echo "{% set name    = '$name' %}"    >  vars.txt
 echo "{% set version = '$version' %}" >> vars.txt
@@ -17,22 +22,14 @@ cat vars.txt .conda/meta.yaml > tempfile
 mv tempfile .conda/meta.yaml
 rm vars.txt
 
-mkdir -p dist
-
-conda update  --yes conda
-conda install --yes setuptools conda-build
-
-conda build --output-folder=dist .conda
+mkdir -p dist/conda-bld
 
-# tar it up
-cd dist
-tar czf "$name"-"$version"-conda.tar.gz *
-cd ..
+conda build --output-folder=dist/conda-bld .conda
 
 # Make sure package is installable
 for pyver in 2.7 3.4 3.5 3.6; do
     conda create -y --name "test$pyver" python=$pyver
     source activate test$pyver
-    conda install -y -c file://`pwd`/dist fslpy
+    conda install -y -c file://`pwd`/dist $name
     source deactivate
 done
diff --git a/.ci/deploy_conda.sh b/.ci/deploy_conda.sh
index 80222762248dec11fe595dabdd0fae0872b98cb4..23ff5f31a582e4f3395d5d9c2b1da2b522861bfd 100644
--- a/.ci/deploy_conda.sh
+++ b/.ci/deploy_conda.sh
@@ -2,4 +2,4 @@
 
 set -e
 
-rsync -rv dist/*conda.tar.gz "condadeploy:"
+rsync -rv dist/conda-bld/ --exclude 'repodata*' --exclude "*json" "condadeploy:"