Any luck shipping Chromis?

alex277 · Aug 16, 2022

I ordered my first set of fish for my tank, a small school of chromis and a couple clownfish. These came from liveaquaria, the clownfish came looking great and seem to be happy and healthy. The chromis however came in surprisingly bad shape! I've never had bad luck shipping fish, they always seem to come looking fine and I have plenty luck getting them to survive when added. But when these guys showed up a third of them were dead (most looked like they had been dead for some time, colorless and decayed... and they just shipped out yesterday) and about half of the ones that are alive seem to be in not-so-great condition, and frankly I'm not too sure many of these guys are gonna live. Liveaquaria's warranty will refund them, no concern there, but has anyone else had similar experiences getting these guys shipped to them? I can put in another order, maybe that was just a bad batch? Or is this the norm with these guys? I get they aren't the hardiest but I didn't expect anything this bad before they even got to me... I love the fish and would really like to have them

Jay Hemdal · Aug 17, 2022

alex277 said:
I ordered my first set of fish for my tank, a small school of chromis and a couple clownfish. These came from liveaquaria, the clownfish came looking great and seem to be happy and healthy. The chromis however came in surprisingly bad shape! I've never had bad luck shipping fish, they always seem to come looking fine and I have plenty luck getting them to survive when added. But when these guys showed up a third of them were dead (most looked like they had been dead for some time, colorless and decayed... and they just shipped out yesterday) and about half of the ones that are alive seem to be in not-so-great condition, and frankly I'm not too sure many of these guys are gonna live. Liveaquaria's warranty will refund them, no concern there, but has anyone else had similar experiences getting these guys shipped to them? I can put in another order, maybe that was just a bad batch? Or is this the norm with these guys? I get they aren't the hardiest but I didn't expect anything this bad before they even got to me... I love the fish and would really like to have them

Were these small green chromis? If so, I've stopped recommending them for people to buy. Even if they are handled well before you get them (i.e., don't arrive dead or in poor shape) there is still a huge issue with intercellular Uronema with these. Things seems to have gotten worse during Covid. One hypothesis is that the shipping times have gotten longer due to air cargo routes changing, and being more limited.

What happens with the LA drop shippers like LA is - the fish arrive from overseas (a very tough journey) and then are repacked and shipped out just a day or two later. Almost all hobbyist shipments go by overnight carrier (slower than air cargo) and that adds to the stress. The end result if a really high mortality rate on small green chromis.

Jay