liveaquaria.com

[Crakeur]

ok, I am normally against evil empires but the bad doctors are the only online site that carries flasher wrasses of any kind. So, I placed an order for a male and female filamented flasher wrasse, only to be told they were out of stock of the females. So, in a slightly drunken state, I placed an order for male and female carpenter wrasses. I also ordered small pagoda and sunpolyp corals and a pair of porcelain crabs.

 

I put a note in the order that I wanted male and female fish only and I wanted the order cancelled if this wasn't a possibility. This was on Mon or Tues night.

 

I get home from work yesterday to a box. No confirm of shipping, no phone call (got tons when they didn't have the filamented flashers). I would have stayed in for the package or come home earlier had I known I had animals waiting for me.

 

Anyway, I open the box and the protective inflatable box (cool idea) and find a very wet selection of bags. No leakage. It looked as if water was poured into the box.

 

Anyway I acclimate and open the first bag. Male wrasse. Very sweet. Hides immediately. I open the second bag. Proc. crab. third bag, porcelain crab. So far so good. Then I open the 4th bag. Male carpenter wrasses. Now I'm ####ed. Open the 5th bag, 6-8 inch long pagoda cup. Odd shape that will not fit anywhere in my tank. Certainly not a small coral. Lots of dead spots. I open the last bag. 6-8 inch long sunpolyp. Lots of colonies and some red macro growing on it. Coral fits into a cave but is too large. I will definitely need to break it up into three or four smaller pieces (easily done as the colonies are separated).

 

I call the good doctors and tell them that I had no clue this was coming, I wanted a female and gave explicit instructions to cancel the order if the female and the male were not available. Here's the response, and the reason why I ordered from them in the first place (a friend told me this was there policy) "we will credit your credit card for the fish, both of them. please donate one of them to a local fish store. the corals are larger than you wanted but you wanted them so we cannot give you credit for them but we will give you a coupon for a discount on your next order"

 

So I ended up with almopst $60 of fish knocked off the bill. Unfortunately, I haven't seen the two fish swimming around at all, unless I shove my head behind the tank (not an easy or painfree act). Hopefully they'll come out today. The pagoda is opened up and the sun polyps looked to be showing some signs of life this morning. I'll try direct feeding them tomorrow morning or late tonight.

 

Anyway, while the prices are not as good as other places, they do have a huge selection and they are the only online dealer that gives you money back on an order. No store credit. That's worth the extra cost. (my friend told me he had two dead fish (after the 10 day guarantee) and they didn't even ask to have them sent back)

[drdrew]

i recently split an order with 2 other aquarists and we all had deaths and poor quality livestock in 3 seperate tanks. i have ordered there a long time ago with no probs, but i must say, given the amount of quality vendors now online i will NEVER order from liveaquaria again.

clown goby-emaciated-never ate

linkia DOA

true perc pair - dead in 3-4 days

neon goby pair - dead in a few days..

and there was more that i can't remember......we picked up the package at fedex, so time delay was not a factor...definitely the most dissapointing online experience i've ever had....

[SaltyDawg]

NICE!!!! I wondered just how well they do business. Now I know and I wil Probably do some business with them as well.

[Crakeur]

be forewarned, their small corals are friggin huge. I felt like a moron complaining about that but it really is an issue in smaller tanks.

[MrKrispy]

I and several friends have ordered fresh and salwater livestock from liveaqauria and haven't had any problems. I expect SOME problems when mail ordering live stock, but have been lucky with them. One of my SW friends got a pretty sickly fish (that recovered slowly) but he complained and they gave him his money back. You never know...

[caja]

I recieved my order from Liveaquaria yesterday. Everything arrived well pacakaged and triple bagged. Lettuce nudi and redmoon snail are already hard at work munching on the hair alage. I ordered red mushrooms. I got red mushrooms, even has a blue one on there too. They are attached to a huge mussel shell of some sort with 2 small live mussels and two huge live clams or scallops. not sure which as I haven't searched around for an ID yet. These things are enormous.

[caja]

Ugly little bugger. Here's the one on the left.

[caja]

Here's the big one on the top right. To the lower left and right of it are the two smaller mussells. Got a nice orange sponge growing on it. Oh and there's those red shrooms I bought.

[Crakeur]

spiny oysters caj. nice addition, if they live. I've had mixed success with them

[caja]

Thanks.