Hi Thunderstruck,
I'm sorry for the delay, and, although you've already ordered (and we greatly appreciate that you did), your questions still hold merit.
As for a guarantee, we do not offer one outright, though we do have certain policies and procedures we abide by to make sure everything goes as smoothly and efficiently for everyone (especially the corals!). In terms of packing, we do everything we can to ensure the health of the animals before leaving our facility and upon arriving at the desired location. We seal the box as much as possible to aid in thermal insulation, and we use
Coldpack shipping containers as, in our experience, they work better than traditional Styrofoam boxes (not to mention they're better for the environment); though we utilize Styrofoam for larger orders. We try to double-bag the animals as much as possible to a. minimize the risk of puncture/leakage and b. the extra layer of plastic further insulates the water holding the animal from temperature changes. Also each bag holding the animal is filled with an appropriate volume of water and fill the remaining available space with pure oxygen, which both allow for reduced impact of temperature intrusion and the health of the organism given the stressful situation. During the summer months we utilize ice packs in the boxes to keep the organisms cool, and hot packs in the winter to keep them warm.
In terms of shipping, we only offer next-day services as this is by far one of the best guarantees for animal health. If we can minimize the amount of time between our facility and your aquarium, we thus maximize the chance of having not only living, but healthy organisms. We also ship out as late as we can in the day for this reason, and also suggest that people have their packages shipped to their nearest FedEx location so they are held there in a climate controlled storage area for pickup as opposed to sitting outside your door potentially in the heat/cold and/or riding around in the back of a hot/cold delivery truck for some time. These steps have led to numerous stories relayed to us about how our animals have been fully open and extended in the bags in which they arrived!
Lastly, if something is to happen to the order that is a fault on our part, we strive to correct the issue as immediately and effectively as possible. And, as always, we're always here to answer any of your questions and concerns.
These measures we take are therefore as close to a guarantee as we can offer, and so far we have had immense success with satisfaction, and I hope you'll be another one joining the list!
As far as the 14-polyp summer special is concerned, we will be offering it until the end of the summer (i.e. around 9/21) at which point we will evaluate our the necessity to continue running it. We were previously running our standard 11-polyps for $99 and may return to it at that time, but it all depends on numerous factors. We will certainly continue to offer various WYSIWYG corals and in the future will begin offering an increased number of products of different kinds, and will gladly be keeping everyone apprised as we do.
So thanks so much again for going ahead and ordering, and we hope you'll be completely satisfied with your order and that we'll hear from you in the future.
Cheers,
Graham
Coral MorphologicP.S. Thanks again for the support, spanky! Glad you're enjoying the Ricordea, and let us know if you have any further questions!