What happened to you?

[DaJMasta]

I just got an order in a thin cardboard box with a little newspaper, a single paper plate, and a pair of heat packs. The newspaper was wet because one of the bags wasn't even correctly heat sealed. Water temperature was 63F on arrival, to my surprise, as the high for today is 50F (and it was forecasted that way.)

One hector's goby (of what should have been two) arrived vertical in the bag, not breathing, no fin movement
One rock flower anemone arrived spewing its mesenterial filaments
Three sexy shrimp couldn't right themselves in the bag
Two sexy shrimp weren't really moving but were at least holding on

I got them out, drip acclimating, with a small heater, airstone, and a few drops of prime, and I'm hopeful that most of the sexy shrimp and the anemone will eventually pull through, but..... what happened to you? Your shipping used to be fine, you charge a $10 box fee, and you can't even include a styrofoam box in the middle of the winter to a destination in the 30s overnight which offers a fair bit of the structural support to the package overall? You can't double bag anything to prevent heat seal issues from leaking half the water in a bag? Did you even package with oxygen? You can't even tell someone when their order isn't entirely filled?


I don't even know if I want store credit because I no longer have confidence you can ship livestock safely. This isn't even FedEx's fault, even though they seem to delay 20% of my overnight packages by a day - nothing would have survived in that case.

 

[Cell]

LA has been this way for awhile now, unfortunately.

 

[Troylee]

same broken record… sucks! @danieyella got a box yesterday with no heat packs and dead fish…

 

[danieyella]

Yup. Water was probably in the 40s - some puffy air pocket packaging. The gorg bag was leaking everywhere. No heat pack. Salinity for the fish was 1.031

 

[DaJMasta]

So the packaging isn't consistent? They're just using whatever's around?

They've been shipping fish for decades, they're charging for packing, they've got an arrive alive guarantee - they know better. Are they paying the importers so little per fish that this could possibly even be profitable? It sure doesn't seem ethical, at least.

 

[Troylee]

They used to be the place to go! Then they got bought from petco “I think it was” and I haven’t heard anything good since so I haven’t placed any orders in years.. these threads pop up all the time and it sucks! Hopefully they get someone in there that cares and knows what to do!

 

[danieyella]

This was my first really poor divers den experience. Previously I've had really good care and consistency ordering from DD vs regular

 

[DaJMasta]

Yeah, it probably hasn't been a year since my last order and it had proper packing and arrived fine, as far as I can remember.

I'm doubly surprised you had a bad experience from Diver's Den since the WI location is supposedly where the premium care and the experts on site are.

 

[adsf430]

Sucks to hear. I used to only buy from Divers Den back in 2011-2013 and it was amazing. Now the prices are higher than most fish stores versus much lower in the past, and all I hear are horror stories. : (

 

[DaJMasta]

Well, in better news, aside from the fish, they may all pull through. The anemone sucked its guts back in after a few hours of acclimation, spat them out again in the tank, but is now holding down and inflated a few hours later. Had one shrimp that seemed tangled in some gunk and moving minimally, but it's been holding onto some mesh in an isolation basket, and the other that seemed weaker on moving I think is doing alright.

This doesn't take away from their 'new shipping standard' being far below the industry standard and frankly is neglectful to the animals they should be striving to take care of. Still no word from customer service either, have to make sure they at least refund both fish since they didn't even bother to ship the second or tell me they weren't.

This is a really good way to push long time customers away, I hope someone there can figure that out or they won't have a lot of time left.

 

[Tommy's Reef]

Dude I've been buying from them for 11 years and 2 years ago I stopped. Had 3 fish show up completely covered in velvet barely alive! They made it a day

 

[Reefing102]

Unfortunately I had a similar experience a couple years ago with a clean up crew purchase.

FWIW, Petco no longer owns LiveAquaria. They are owned by Tropical Fish International (a massive importer/wholesaler similar to Sea Dwelling Creatures and Quality Marine).

PETCO Sells LiveAquaria to Holding group owned by Tropical Fish International | Reef Builders | The Reef and Saltwater Aquarium Blog

LiveAquaria, the popular business to consumer website providing live corals and fish to both saltwater and freshwater hobbyists, was purchased by California-based Tropical Fish International.

reefbuilders.com

 

[Stang67]

The frozen food I ordered was thawed when I got it as well. They can't get hot or cold right. Would only purchase hard goods going fwd.

 

[mfinn]

I just got an order in a thin cardboard box with a little newspaper, a single paper plate, and a pair of heat packs. The newspaper was wet because one of the bags wasn't even correctly heat sealed. Water temperature was 63F on arrival, to my surprise, as the high for today is 50F (and it was forecasted that way.)

One hector's goby (of what should have been two) arrived vertical in the bag, not breathing, no fin movement
One rock flower anemone arrived spewing its mesenterial filaments
Three sexy shrimp couldn't right themselves in the bag
Two sexy shrimp weren't really moving but were at least holding on

I got them out, drip acclimating, with a small heater, airstone, and a few drops of prime, and I'm hopeful that most of the sexy shrimp and the anemone will eventually pull through, but..... what happened to you? Your shipping used to be fine, you charge a $10 box fee, and you can't even include a styrofoam box in the middle of the winter to a destination in the 30s overnight which offers a fair bit of the structural support to the package overall? You can't double bag anything to prevent heat seal issues from leaking half the water in a bag? Did you even package with oxygen? You can't even tell someone when their order isn't entirely filled?


I don't even know if I want store credit because I no longer have confidence you can ship livestock safely. This isn't even FedEx's fault, even though they seem to delay 20% of my overnight packages by a day - nothing would have survived in that case.

So not even that cheap bag they replaced the styrofoam boxes with.
This is the worst.
I don't even know how they can be a sponsor here.
@revhtree
@Peace River
Can anybody explain how R2R allows a sponsor here to do stuff like this?

I know they will probably issue a "canned " response about how they value their customers, blah, blah, blah.
Stuff like this just keeps happening

 

[Cell]

I don't believe LA is good for this hobby anymore. I don't think they actually care about the livestock.