Live aquaria

neltel_7 · Apr 7, 2020

I have a shipment of fish coming from the California facility and am extremely nervous. Please share your experience with live aquaria in the last couple of months (good or bad) if you have had any.

CoralNerd · Apr 7, 2020

The last two months I've had two deliveries and I've been real happy with the fish I ordered. I've ordered from them in the past and was pleased also.

hawk82 · Apr 7, 2020

I am debating on placing at order with them also. Cant get out to my LFS.

Waters · Apr 7, 2020

I just received an order of two from Diver's Den and and order of one from Live Aquaria. Both were packed very well.....no issues (so far) with any of the fish.

Mmun · Apr 7, 2020

neltel_7 said:
I have a shipment of fish coming from the California facility and am extremely nervous. Please share your experience with live aquaria in the last couple of months (good or bad) if you have had any.

I prefer divers den because I live in TN so shipping experience is shorter. I have had only one bad experience with LA in general but they always have issued a credit or taken care of me if the fish dies.

MK300 · Apr 7, 2020

I have had 2 deliveries from DD this month. Both packages arrived in excellent condition. Well packaged with heat packs. I received a clownfish pair and a purple tang. All fish began eating on the 1st day and are doing very well after 3 weeks

mfinn · Apr 7, 2020

Most of my orders coming from LA have been pretty good.
My last one was for a 2" Purple Tang which was on sale and a little bit of store credit was delivered for about $120.
It was in perfect condition.

NJDragonet · Apr 7, 2020

About a month ago I got a blue spotted toby puffer and chormis the puffer attacked and killed almost everything and the chormis where so little like half a centimeter I have a friend who breeds them those looked like they where at least 2 days old. Then I ordered a new potters angel a few weeks ago he got killed by the puffer. But all the fish arrived alive and healthy just be careful what you buy

Mike&Terry · Apr 7, 2020

In January, I had an incident where Fedex held up 2 LiveAquaria packages (one from Diver's Den, the other out of California) at their Kentucky hub overnight. By the time the two packages arrived, they had spent over 48 hours in transit. The DD Filefish was in great shape, the One Spot Rabbitfish (out of Cali) was paper thin. I was worried it would not make it. Both were quarantined and fattened up over several weeks and are doing great.

I have placed a couple of orders with LA over the past 2 months - the livestock arrived on-time and in great condition.

Orraclekiller · Apr 7, 2020

I've had a couple orders in the past 2 months. They sent me a bristle tooth tang that had fins missing and he died after 3 days. Another order I had 3 fire cardinals they claimed were mated and turns out they were not. After about 5 hours the bigger cardinal killed the 2 smaller ones, however they did give me credit on them. In this same order I also bought 3 other fish honestly can't remember what they were but they died after a few days as well. All my losses have been covered by their warranty.

Flame2hawk · Apr 7, 2020

Its been a mixed bag with LA and DD but when there have been issues they have stood behind their 14 alive guarantee. Good customer service. Overall would use them again. Good luck.

Carl C · Apr 7, 2020

Great experience! Just got a delivery today
Powder blue tang !

vtecintegra · Apr 8, 2020

Check the water temp when you receive them and document if it's off. My last group was very low. Salinity from CA was 1.020, so I set my quarantine to that and raise it over several days instead of immediately trying to acclimate to 1.026 at delivery.

hawk82 · Apr 10, 2020

Did OP get your shipment? I just ordered 1 Clownfish, 1 Banggai Cardinal, 1 Royal Gramma, and a spotted mushroom. Supposed to ship on Monday. Fingers crossed.

OrionN · Apr 10, 2020

neltel_7 said:
I have a shipment of fish coming from the California facility and am extremely nervous. Please share your experience with live aquaria in the last couple of months (good or bad) if you have had any.

So how did it turn out?

TriggerFinger · Apr 10, 2020

I got a clown from DD on feb 25th. It had a mouth wound and didn’t eat for 8 days. Mouth is healed nicely and eating now. Fingers crossed

neltel_7 · Apr 10, 2020

hawk82 said:
Did OP get your shipment? I just ordered 1 Clownfish, 1 Banggai Cardinal, 1 Royal Gramma, and a spotted mushroom. Supposed to ship on Monday. Fingers crossed.

Yes I did! I am pleased and at the same time I am displeased. I am pleased because everything arrived alive and doing well but I am displeased because the Sailfin tang I ordered its upper lip was grinded down and it had what appeared to be a hole in its head. Thankfully the orcid dotty back I ordered was in great condition.
Live Aquarian’s costumer service is amazing and they refunded my Sailfin tang and let me keep it to see if I can nurse it back to health. And then they sent me a neon goby for good measure! I am pleased to say that I have successfully nursed the tang back to health and the hole is completely covered up with skin and it is eating just fine ( the lip is still trying to grow back but I’m not sure it will).
So bottom line I am upset that they sent a fish in that condition but I am please that they corrected the problem right away.

neltel_7 · Apr 10, 2020

OrionN said:
So how did it turn out?

I just posted a summary of what happened above^

neltel_7 · Apr 10, 2020

OrionN said:
So how did it turn out?

Here are the before and after picture and it’s only been 4 days. I’ve just been feeding well.
You can kinda still see the outline of where the hole was but it’s pretty good progress for only 4 days

Flame2hawk · Apr 10, 2020

AS mentioned mixed bag but their cust service is generally great and they stand behind their specimens. Quality control on the front end could be a bit better, as examples above by Neltel_7. ordered 5 females a 1 male Lyretail anthias ...got 3 males and 3 females, they resent what was suppose to be 2 females and sent 1 males and 1 female....sent me scribbled with Lymph and gave me a full refund....scribbled survived but has scares from the lymph and occasionally has a bought of lymph which goes away in 1-2 weeks. Their prices are a bit on the high side and I suspect they could lower them quite a bit if they had better front end quality control and less redo’s and avoidable errors....