LiveAquaria losing its touch?

[Bolen2]

LiveAquaria used to be a shining light for online shopping when it comes to marine and freshwater livestock alike, but recently I have had many poor quality purchases. And when I say poor, I mean poor. Orders shipping out late, get held overnight by the carrier, bags arriving busted or leaking, DOA or near it, poorly packaged bags sitting loosely in the box. I used to receive extremely good quality from them but as of late things seem to be taking a nosedive. I have to say my current pending order order will probably be my last. The last order I made did not ship until the day after they estimated and when it got shipped it got held overnight in Memphis Tennessee. Miraculously everything survived but when I questioned them about this I received no response. This has happened on multiple previous orders but I made one last order anyway just to give the benefit of the doubt and the same thing is happening with this one. I cannot seem to get a response from them as to why this is. What is the issue here? Is it them? Is it FedEx? Or is it both? I used to love LiveAquaria and as of now the majority of my livestock comes from there. But this is beginning to become unforgivable in my eyes. Am I being too harsh? Or is this something others have experienced as well?

 

[mfinn]

Not too harsh at all.
In fact IMO they are at the bottom of the barrel. Worst in the business.
The new supposed eco friendly packaging is a joke.
They say they care about the corals/fish and the customer, but it's just not happening.
It's like they are trying to run the company down to nothing.

 

[Big Smelly fish]

It’s sad seeing all these post lately about them. I’ve experienced the same thing and would never order from them again.

 

[kingjoe]

LiveAquaria used to be a shining light for online shopping when it comes to marine and freshwater livestock alike, but recently I have had many poor quality purchases. And when I say poor, I mean poor. Orders shipping out late, get held overnight by the carrier, bags arriving busted or leaking, DOA or near it, poorly packaged bags sitting loosely in the box. I used to receive extremely good quality from them but as of late things seem to be taking a nosedive. I have to say my current pending order order will probably be my last. The last order I made did not ship until the day after they estimated and when it got shipped it got held overnight in Memphis Tennessee. Miraculously everything survived but when I questioned them about this I received no response. This has happened on multiple previous orders but I made one last order anyway just to give the benefit of the doubt and the same thing is happening with this one. I cannot seem to get a response from them as to why this is. What is the issue here? Is it them? Is it FedEx? Or is it both? I used to love LiveAquaria and as of now the majority of my livestock comes from there. But this is beginning to become unforgivable in my eyes. Am I being too harsh? Or is this something others have experienced as well?

Alas, I've had a similar experience. I bought from them circa 2002-2008, I think. The quality of the fish and inverts back then was nonpareil. When I set up a new tank about two years ago, that was the first place I thought of for livestock to get my system started. I'll spare you the litany of lurid details, but after receiving that one order, I resolved to never buy from them again. It is unfortunate, because at one time, they were probably about the best in the business; if I remember correctly, they were still operating under the Drs. Foster & Smith banner when I first ordered from them.

 

[nigeldcat]

I used to be a fan many years ago. I used to buy from Pet Warehouse and when Dr's Foster and Smith bought Pet Warehouse, I learned about Liveaquaria. I had purchased online fish from Flying Fish Express and they wound up being purchased by Dr's Foster and Smith as well and incorporated into LiveAquaria. I had OK experience during this time but you could see it was beginning to struggle.

When Petco bought and killed Dr'sF&S the future of LiveAquaria was clear. Petco sold off LiveAquaria last year to independent investors and I suspect Petco ran off and cut the staff to make the selloff look more attractive to investors. Now that it is independent, my guess is they are struggling to get back to what they once were with the added debt the investors incurred to make the sale happen. Hope they can recuperate, but not holding my breath as these deals rarely work out.

 

[mfinn]

I used to be a fan many years ago. I used to buy from Pet Warehouse and when Dr's Foster and Smith bought Pet Warehouse, I learned about Liveaquaria. I had purchased online fish from Flying Fish Express and they wound up being purchased by Dr's Foster and Smith

Ahh, someone else remembers Flying Fish Express.
I believe that's where I bought my 2 Gold Stripe Maroon Clowns from.
Which are still alive today.

 

[nigeldcat]

Ahh, someone else remembers Flying Fish Express.
I believe that's where I bought my 2 Gold Stripe Maroon Clowns from.
Which are still alive today.

Someone else that has some old clowns. Harold and Maude were purchased in 2001 and still swimming and I thought purchase was from LiveAquaria, but now I am not so sure it wasn't FFE as FFE did not get bought until around 2003. I should have kept better logs. This is from around 9/21

 

[GoldeneyeRet]

I too was a regular flying fish express customer