Newbie ordering questions

Indytraveler83 · May 13, 2019

Hey guys, just a few basic questions for those of you who order livestock online:

1) How do you handle receiving packages? LA and most of the others void their warranty if you don’t sign on the first delivery attempt. Neither of us have jobs that give us the flexibility to step out of work if the package is arriving during work hours.

2) What do you guys do to avoid paying crazy shipping charges? A lot of the animals I’m looking at don’t come close to free shipping, and I don’t have a large enough system to support adding half a dozen fish at once.

(Yes, I will try to to buy local when possible, but the only local I have is a small shop 40 min away with very limited resources. And Petco... which I won’t buy from.)

Rlreefing · May 13, 2019

Hey good evening,

1. one thing that you may consider is having the livestock arrive at your work (if they are cool with it), or have a neighbor receive the package. I do not believe that I had to sign for my last order from LA or ORA.

2. If you are not able to buy the required amount for free shipping try to choose fish from the same shipping location, LA utilizes multiple locations for their offered stock, this should reduce need for extra fees. Ask you local fish store if they are able to get special selections in for you if you are interested. may owners will make efforts on special requests.

Indytraveler83 · May 13, 2019

Rlreefing said:
Hey good evening,

1. one thing that you may consider is having the livestock arrive at your work (if they are cool with it), or have a neighbor receive the package. I do not believe that I had to sign for my last order from LA or ORA.

2. If you are not able to buy the required amount for free shipping try to choose fish from the same shipping location, LA utilizes multiple locations for their offered stock, this should reduce need for extra fees. Ask you local fish store if they are able to get special selections in for you if you are interested. may owners will make efforts on special requests.

1) Isn't an option. I work in a secured govt building with strict rules on what can come in. (Edit: That makes it sound like I'm someone important. I'm not. But we share the building with most of the local govt, including the judges... so they are very strict.)

2) That's a good point. I'll pay attention to that. I'm not sure what the local guy has access to, but maybe I can push him a little.

Do you guys have any luck with holding packages at the shipper's facility? I wouldn't be able to get it until after work, but at least it wouldn't ride around in a hot/cold truck. Would the warranty still be valid? Or am I better off driving 2-3 hours on my days off to the closest places that carry a good selection for the stuff that my "local" guy can't get.

It irritates me that I can't just use PetCo, which is 15 minutes away, will order things I want, and be easy to get to. But their sw section almost always looks sick, and their fw stock has crashed my planted tank even after a qt. So... yeah.

K7BMG · May 13, 2019

Do you have a local UPS store near you?
If so you can have the fish delivered there and pick up later.
Some Post offices will receive the package for you and you can pick up later, if you have a repour with them.
The problem is the amount of time they are in the shipping process overall.
My suggestion is to take the time off of work to receive the fish?

Not knocking you but I am curious, I see this comment everyday by so many people here on the forum.
My LFS is an hour+ away, so many people can't seem to spare a few hours on a weekend once in a while?
The reality is new fish are added what once a month to six weeks until the tank is stocked. So I don't get it?

I live in Reno, NV and have traveled and will continue to travel the 2.5 hours away to Sacramento, Ca to go to better fish stores.
For me its just a part of this hobby, not my favorite thing to be driving for five hours, as I agree windshield is a waste of my life, and have better things I could be doing, but if I want a tank then that's part of the commitment right?

Indytraveler83 · May 13, 2019

K7BMG said:
Do you have a local UPS store near you?
If so you can have the fish delivered there and pick up later.
Some Post offices will receive the package for you and you can pick up later, if you have a repour with them.
The problem is the amount of time they are in the shipping process overall.
My suggestion is to take the time off of work to receive the fish?

Not knocking you but I am curious, I see this comment everyday by so many people here on the forum.
My LFS is an hour+ away, so many people can't seem to spare a few hours on a weekend once in a while?
The reality is new fish are added what once a month to six weeks until the tank is stocked. So I don't get it?

I live in Reno, NV and have traveled and will continue to travel the 2.5 hours away to Sacramento, Ca to go to better fish stores.
For me its just a part of this hobby, not my favorite thing to be driving for five hours, as I agree windshield is a waste of my life, and have better things I could be doing, but if I want a tank then that's part of the commitment right?

Definitely understand your question. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'll answer the best that I can:
1) Warranty. Most of these places require you to return in-person with the deceased fish. It's not so bad to make a 2 hour drive on a Saturday, but much worse if the warranty is up prior to the next day off, and you find yourself racing the clock on a Wednesday evening to return a $200 wrasse that didn't make it through QT.
2) For me anyways, I've got one small shop 40 minutes east, a somewhat bigger shop 90 minutes west, and one big shop a little under 3 hours north. If one shop doesn't have something I'm interested in (or they said they did, but I get there and its sick/sold while I was driving/etc), then I've blown my chance to get something. And I may not have that chance to make that drive for 2-3 more weeks.
3) These animals had a long journey to get to these stores anyways, and likely weren't shipped to the stores with the same care that LA, DD, etc ship directly to the customers.

That's not saying I won't make the trip, because I very well may. But the disadvantages counter the online disadvantages, especially remembering that the long ride to the pet store, plus the long car ride aren't really any better than the single long ride to the USPS/UPS store.

Trust me... I was VERY close to making this tank an African cichlid display, as those are readily available at several local places that carry FW only. But I couldn't turn down the opportunity to have my own reef...

Rlreefing · May 13, 2019

I travel nearly an hour to the local fish store, then usually spend a few hours looking at the new stock and bouncing ideas off the store owners. I enjoy going to the store and hand selecting the fish, that way I can inquire how long they have had it, gauge health, and see it eat which is important to me.

Reefs and Geeks · May 14, 2019

Many people don't have good LFSs near them. I'm lucky enough to have one or two within 45 minutes. When I lived in Houston I had 10 stores within an hour which sort of spoiled me.

As far as fish, I'd most likely end up either making the long trips myself, asking a lfs to special order something, have package held at UPS, or take a day off work to receive the fish, then just enjoy any extra time off that day. in that order.

If interested in coral, there's likely hobbiests nearby that would be glad to sell frags of what they have at reasonable prices.

Indytraveler83 · May 14, 2019

Well I talked to the guy that’s about 40 minutes away, and he seemed pretty eager to order things for me. Some of the prices he mentioned also seemed too good to be true. So I’m going to use my freshwater tank as an experiment, and asked him to order me some snakeskin barbs. If he comes through with good stock for that I’ll give him first crack at ordering some of the fish I’m looking for my reef tank.