Liveaquaria

[mehaffydr]

I have placed many orders with Live aquaria over the last 10 years and always happy with the livestock. That being said I would not order anything this week with the nasty weather Next week things are warming up I would wait for better weather no matter who you order from.

 

[stanlalee]

If there is going to be severe weather or a known delay/hold over due to weather they don't ship until the conditions improve. Held my divers den coral for 2 weeks due to a storm a few months back. I wouldn't worry about "regular" cold weather packing. They are in Wisconsin after all. They pack sufficient hot packs for overnight winter travel.

 

[Woodchip]

not any nasty weather the 2 feet of snow has melted and it is warming up a lot do by the time they ship it it will be up to 45

 

[mehaffydr]

It not just the weather at your hose its weather at shipping point weather at shipping hub and then weather at your house.

 

[Frozen Tundra Reef Dreams]

i would be patient if I were you. major bad luck reports of doa's from tons of sellers right now

 

[Woodchip]

I will wait to order from them or probably just order from my lfs

 

[NYCMAN]

Are there any other places to order from that are better?

Reeftopia

 

[NYCMAN]

Something has gone very wrong at this company in past 3 months. Petco sold them to a company in LA last July. All my orders since December have been late or MIA. Can't get them on the phone, they don't respond to emails. Maybe the weather has overwhelmed them? That would be the only excuse, but then their communication approach on this has failed. These new owners took what I considered to be my only online livestock store over past decade, and ruined it in one season.

 

[Azedenkae]

So I have never ordered from liveaquaria but have heard good things about them. They have a fish that I want and I was thinking about getting it from them but it is pretty comes here and I don’t want the fish to freeze. I also got confused because liveaquaria said they have their own shipping thing. Not sure what they meant. Would you recommend ordering a fish or not because it is too cold. It’s about 40 degrees here. Would they do anything to keep the fish warm or no?

40 degrees is not too bad. They do have warmers to keep their fish warm, yeah. So long as you receive the order when they come, it should be fine. The only issue is the quality of their live stock itself, which in my experience is very hit or miss. I got some high quality live stock that are doing very well, but I also received live stock that was half-dead in the bag. Or actually dead, sometimes. The good thing is that it is very easy to claim deaths, which well, should be expected because it is their fault. The bad news is, you get charged a box charge each time, you might not actually want to order anything extra except to replace what was lost and suddenly you have to pay for shipping again. Which can be very annoying. Their customer service is great though. But yeah, still, if you want to look for reliable deliveries so you can plan things well and/or don't have to re-order things again and again, then LiveAquaria is not a good idea.

I personally have given up because I don't want to keep on spending on extra live stock I don't need to meet the free-delivery cut-off, or pay delivery charges when I just want the live stock I need.

 

[jmichaelh7]

Ordered 2 times. Both DOA. As mentioned they give credit but don’t refund shipping so your SOL

 

[reddogf5]

This is an interesting thread. I'm getting back into the hobby, and always ordered from Live Aquaria with good results, I can't remember any DOA fish. I recently ordered 4 fish, a fairy wrasse and 3 Vanderbilt chromis. The wrasse wasn't quite DOA, but was motionless until poked. By the seconds morning after they arrived, three of the four were dead. I only reported the wrasse, which they credited.
It seems that in addition to the wrasse, the chromis are also not robust to shipping.
We decided to give them one more try, have an order coming with a different wrasse and two chromis to complete the trio. But if these don't arrive healthy and 100% make it through QT, Live Aquaria is off my list forever.

 

[jmichaelh7]

This is an interesting thread. I'm getting back into the hobby, and always ordered from Live Aquaria with good results, I can't remember any DOA fish. I recently ordered 4 fish, a fairy wrasse and 3 Vanderbilt chromis. The wrasse wasn't quite DOA, but was motionless until poked. By the seconds morning after they arrived, three of the four were dead. I only reported the wrasse, which they credited.
It seems that in addition to the wrasse, the chromis are also not robust to shipping.
We decided to give them one more try, have an order coming with a different wrasse and two chromis to complete the trio. But if these don't arrive healthy and 100% make it through QT, Live Aquaria is off my list forever.

I stopped ordering because I couldn’t open the bag and see another dead beautiful leopard wrasse stiff . What a waste of an animal

 

[NYCMAN]

i just got a refund for an MIA order from 2/17/21. I had to ask for this refund by email twice and phone once after almost 3 weeks. And that will be my last order. Done with this company.

 

[jmichaelh7]

Is there any success from another company?

or is it 50/50 everywhere else too? I’m contemplating breaking down my QT tank that is cycling due to the fact I don’t know if I’ll find another online trusted source

 

[Woodchip]

I’m just not going to risk it I really like my LFS so I will just stick with them. Thanks all

 

[Ippyroy]

LA ships from 3 different places. I only order livestock at this time of year from a place that is close to where I live. For LA, it means the Wisconsin facility only, their Florida facility is out of the question for me. Ordering any livestock online is always going to be a challenge. In the summer it can get too hot and in the winter it can get too cold. Expecting a vendor to accept all of the risks is ridiculous IMHO. Using an LFS or buying corrals from a local hobbyist is always the best choice if possible.

 

[Spiderwoman]

Over the years I've ordered lots of fish from them and the only ones that have any problems have been maybe 1 chromis out of 5 and from another shipment 1, so always the super cheap fish, never with the more expensive tangs or other fish. If there are shipping delays due to weather or any other reason, that's not LA's fault. Probably out of 30+ fish I've had 3-4 DOA. In just the past 12 months I've ordered:
- 5x SW - Blue/Green Black Axil Chromis - Small (1 dead)
- Spotted Coral Croucher (Bonded Pair)
- 3x SW - Lyretail Anthias, Orange, Female (Fiji) -Medium
- SW - Lyretail Anthias, Red, Male (Fiji) - Medium
- 2x SW - Blue/Green Black Axil Chromis - Small (1 dead)
- Orange Stripe Prawn Goby (Bonded Pair) with Red Banded Snapping Shrimp
- SW - Orangeshoulder Tang, Adult (Indonesia) - Medium
- SW - White Tail Bristletooth Tang (Tahiti) - Medium
- Blue Spotted Rabbitfish

+ snails, starfish, corals

 

[Azedenkae]

Is there any success from another company?

or is it 50/50 everywhere else too? I’m contemplating breaking down my QT tank that is cycling due to the fact I don’t know if I’ll find another online trusted source

I currently have a 100% success rate from my Cultivated Reef orders. The live stock arrived looking healthy and had no problems acclimatizing to my aquarium. They are all doing well, so at this point if they die I probably only have myself to blame. They including two clownfish and five corals.

Note that this is also with an instance where Fedex delayed my coral delivery (not Cultivated Reef's fault), and it arrived a day late. Nonetheless when I opened the box it was still warm, and the corals looked great, so yeah. If the live stock is healthy, then they are much more likely to survive unexpected situations too, another boon.

 

[Fishtastrophy]

I've ordered from LA maybe half a dozen times and had no issues on shipping, although that was before the mega-shipping cluster that was winter 2020.

I've also ordered from TSM for my Anthias, because I heard they were so difficult to QT and acclimate - they turned out great, and ate from day 1. I actually am about an hour or so away from their warehouse and drove down to pick up my order after I figured that out. It's a great place and the people are super friendly.

All that being said about TSM, I wonder if they're going through some harder times right now with supply... they upped the minimum order to $250 recently (and free shipping to $500), and their selection seems to be way down from what they were earlier. Maybe it's just the stuff that I'm looking at, and I have nothing but great things to say about how they handle their fish... I just wish I could buy more from them!

 

[reddogf5]

This is an interesting thread. I'm getting back into the hobby, and always ordered from Live Aquaria with good results, I can't remember any DOA fish. I recently ordered 4 fish, a fairy wrasse and 3 Vanderbilt chromis. The wrasse wasn't quite DOA, but was motionless until poked. By the seconds morning after they arrived, three of the four were dead. I only reported the wrasse, which they credited.
It seems that in addition to the wrasse, the chromis are also not robust to shipping.
We decided to give them one more try, have an order coming with a different wrasse and two chromis to complete the trio. But if these don't arrive healthy and 100% make it through QT, Live Aquaria is off my list forever.

Follow up on this, the wrasse arrived lethargic, but not as bad as the first one. He sat at the bottom of the tank for a few days, then perished although he was eating. The two chromis made it through QT and are in the display tank now.