Online Fish 'Size'

ca1ore · May 24, 2018

OK, so I am used to buying the occasional booger-sized coral frag, but in a recent online order I got some booger-sized fish

. My personal experience across many dozens of online orders has been to consistently receive fish that are larger than advertised. This time I ordered a bunch of small Bartlett anthias and some of them are barely 1/2" long. Gads! Trying to decide if I should complain ..... because I hate complainers.

Curious if other folks have received fish that are materially smaller than expected?

Greybeard · May 24, 2018

But... they're so CUTE!

As long as they're healthy, eating well, swimming well, I don't care that they're small. If they were not what the website was advertising, I suppose you've got a right to complain, but honestly, what are they going to do about it? Ship them back? Seems a bad idea to me.

ca1ore · May 24, 2018

True enough. Just means they'll spend many months in QT lest they become food for my other fish.

anbosu · May 24, 2018

I usually have the opposite problem.

In theory I guess smaller is better since they should live longer in your care. What do you feed anthias of that size? Cyclopeeze?

mfinn · May 24, 2018

I ordered 4 meleagris wrasses a few months ago, and 2 of them were hardly 3/4" if that much and the other 2 were just under 1".
Luckily they grew pretty fast. I doubt they could have been able to get away if they had gotten close to a MP40.

LatinKing · May 27, 2018

There's are many valid points here. When placing your order was there different sizes to order? Example S, M, L, and XL however if there is no chart explaining what small means I would have contact the company to describe the sizes in inches. Where did you order your fish? LiveAquaria details for male or female there sizes wether in stock or not. Each fish has a descriptive chart.

Eva Rose · May 27, 2018

If they gave specific size measurement or a size range with designated lengths for each as @LatinKing mentions above), I would contact the company. If you present your disappointment in a calm, kind manner a good company will appreciate it. It helps them improve and give better customer service. They may offer you a discount on a future purchase (or another compensation), since you obviously are keeping the fish. I love baby fish, but tiny ones present special concerns (getting swallowed by overflows, fans or tank mates) until they reach a certain size.
If they did not give any size parameters, then you could suggest it would be helpful for customers to have this available on their site.

ca1ore · May 31, 2018

While some of them were below the published size for 'small', amusingly they've grown appreciably already in just a week (I feed them almost constantly). As Graybeard noted, they ARE cute

ca1ore · May 31, 2018

this is me · May 31, 2018

I once ordered a group of small blue reef chromis and they came in at around 1/2". Lost half of them to the overflow and into the sump and into the skimmer. To make up for the loss, I re-ordered again for medium size. They came in at 3".

nereefpat · May 31, 2018

ca1ore said:
(I feed them almost constantly).

As active as those little suckers look in that video, you'd have to feed them constantly.

ca1ore · May 31, 2018

Even at this tiny size, classic Bartlett behavior: constant bickering.

ca1ore · Jul 6, 2018

The 'end' of the story ......

The 'booger' sized bartletts have gone into the big display. Of the original five, the two smallest died. Just didn't seem like I could feed them enough to maintain weight. The three larger ones grew pretty fast and went into the big tank yesterday. You can see two of them in the top right corner of the video. I probably would not order smalls again; medium are a better size. I guess the only positive is that they are largely ignored by the larger bartletts in the tank.

mta_morrow · Jul 6, 2018

Great way to finish! They are beautiful!

saltyhog · Jul 6, 2018

Beautiful Ca1ore!

It seems to me that if it's a fish where small /juvies are desirable they underestimate the size and if they are fish where maturity is a plus (say terminal phase wrasses) they over estimate the size......may just be the cynic in me.