Ever receive an order that you... didn't order?

[Chris's Fishes]

Hello! Today, I was woken up by a knock at my door. It was the mail man, with a package marked with "live fish". I DID order some stuff, but it wasn't supposed to be in until January - I was confused, and a bit annoyed. Once I opened the package, the first thing I pulled out was a firefish goby - I didn't order a firefish.

Here's what came in the box:

A firefish goby
A bubbletip anemone
A torch/frogspawn frag
A peppermint Shrimp
A ton of Caulerpa Sp.

None of the stuff in this box is mine. I wasn't prepared for anything yet, so I filled up a food-safe rubbermaid tote with saltwater, a heater, and a cycled sponge filter. I put the firefish into the tote, along with the shrimp and some of the Caulerpa. The rest of the stuff got acclimated into my tank.

I sent an E-mail to the store, explaining the situation, but what would you guys do? I do have the right tanks and lights to keep this stuff, but if this is a common occurence, it could be terrible. Imagine if I had just ordered some live freshwater plants, and had no saltwater tanks - that's a ton of livestock that would probably end up dead. This is a good store, too - I'd rather not state their name publicly, but I've had good experience with them in the past, and they get great reviews. Just wondering what others would have done.

 

Everyone seems to be doing well, but I imagine they were probably sitting somewhere all day yesterday. The frag has begun to open up a bit, and the anemone opened up for a while, then closed up and began expelling zooxanthellae - which I expected. I'll make sure to keep an eye on it, and to feed it some meaty foods until it recovers. I'll be ready to pull the Caulerpa too, in case it decides to try and nuke my tank.

 

[WV Reefer]

6 minutes ago, PoorBigBlue said:

Hello! Today, I was woken up by a knock at my door. It was the mail man, with a package marked with "live fish". I DID order some stuff, but it wasn't supposed to be in until January - I was confused, and a bit annoyed. Once I opened the package, the first thing I pulled out was a firefish goby - I didn't order a firefish.

Here's what came in the box:

A firefish goby
A bubbletip anemone
A torch/frogspawn frag
A peppermint Shrimp
A ton of Caulerpa Sp.

None of the stuff in this box is mine. I wasn't prepared for anything yet, so I filled up a food-safe rubbermaid tote with saltwater, a heater, and a cycled sponge filter. I put the firefish into the tote, along with the shrimp and some of the Caulerpa. The rest of the stuff got acclimated into my tank.

I sent an E-mail to the store, explaining the situation, but what would you guys do? I do have the right tanks and lights to keep this stuff, but if this is a common occurence, it could be terrible. Imagine if I had just ordered some live freshwater plants, and had no saltwater tanks - that's a ton of livestock that would probably end up dead. This is a good store, too - I'd rather not state their name publicly, but I've had good experience with them in the past, and they get great reviews. Just wondering what others would have done.

 

Everyone seems to be doing well, but I imagine they were probably sitting somewhere all day yesterday. The frag has begun to open up a bit, and the anemone opened up for a while, then closed up and began expelling zooxanthellae - which I expected. I'll make sure to keep an eye on it, and to feed it some meaty foods until it recovers. I'll be ready to pull the Caulerpa too, in case it decides to try and nuke my tank.

 

That is crazy!  If you want it keep it. If not trade it for some money or goodies that you do want. 

[Chris's Fishes]

I'd planned on maybe getting a nem anyway, just not so soon! The tank is just a few months old. I think it'll be alright, I'll just have to watch it. If things don't work out, I'll trade him in for some macroalgae or something!

[specore]

It will be interesting to hear the response from the shipper.  Gonna be a rough day for someone in shipping lol

[Clown79]

 I would do what you did.

 

Get them into proper homes and care to prevent unnecessary death of live animals and then contact the store.

[Tamberav]

I have had mistakes made on my order such as wrong mantis shrimp or wrong coral sent but never a package just randomly showing up.

 

Sounds like you got a bunch of free stuff and they will have to reship the other person's package who may be angry if they took off work waiting for it or something!

 

[Chris's Fishes]

I'm glad it seems as if I did the right thing! I was shocked, to say the least. Wasn't really planning to spend today working on aquariums, but hey, I got some free stuff - as long as the store handles this as they should (and I expect them to).

 

Bad news with the nem - it slowly detached itself after it expelled it's zooxanthellae, and I had to turn off pumps to keep it from blowing around. I tried to get it to attach in multiple areas (with no flow), and it never seemed to take. It would inflate, and even took some food. But it never decided to attach. After around 4 hours of the pumps being off, I got uncomfortable with oxygen levels in the tank, and I decided to put it into a container with some rubble and turn pumps back on. It's definitely not happy - which is discouraging, seeing as how it did so well when it was first introduced. It was acclimated over about 1 1/2 hours, with a drip. I can't think of anything that went wrong there. I'll leave it overnight to see if it attaches - if not, I'll re-evaluate. It's still sticky, but it's definitely not as sticky as a nem should be.

 

Everything is else doing great. I'll have to take out some of the Caulerpa from the DT, but I just wanted to get it into water earlier. I'll deal with that tomorrow. The shrimp is still alive and kicking, so I feel like she'll (she has a saddle full of eggs) be okay. The hammer is fully extended in the DT, and had sweeper tentacles out a few minutes ago - I dropped a piece of shrimp onto it, and it took it. No problems there!
 

The firefish already tried to jump, so I lowered the water level in the tote by a few inches, and added a mesh on top. I don't think he's a regular orange firefish - he's definitely orange in color, but he's got a ton of yellow, blue, and purple around his face and fins. He's by far the nicest looking orange firefish I've seen in person - I'm interested to see if he's just a run-of-the-mill variety, or if he's some sort of fancy breed. I offered him a few pellets, and he darted out from the Caulerpa and took them. So far, so good!

 

Lights are already out, so I'll have to get a pic tomorrow, but I found something growing on the Caulerpa. I think it's a soft coral of some sort, but I'm not sure. It's reddish-brown, with tiny red polyps. It actually resembles an acropora frag, except it's got the consistency of a leather coral. Anyone know what this is without a pic? 

[Chris's Fishes]

My curiosity got the better of me. Here's a pic - it's still closed.

 

[squamptonbc]

Never had live animals shipped to me in error, thats crazy. Not sure what the solution is, not like your average hobbyist will be set up to pack and return live animals.

 

I have gotten random boxes from Amazon that I never ordered, each time Amazon has said to keep it, but why it happens not a clue.

[Chris's Fishes]

If i had to guess, it was just a simple shipping label mix-up. I can't imagine anything else being the case - and I'm also not sure why they'd ship something over Christmas. I'm surprised nothing in the box was dead!

[Tamberav]

Looks like it might be a Kenya tree and sounds like a purple firefish.

 

[Chris's Fishes]

Maybe a Kenya tree, true. We'll see how it opens up. As long as it isn't some sort of devil, I don't mind it growing in there.

 

It's not a purple firefish, for sure. I did some research, and I think it's just a particularly colorful Orange Firefish. It's got the same coloration you see in the pic below - there's just more of it.

 

 

Thanks, though!

[Chris's Fishes]

Thinking I'm going to have to make a post in the anemone forum or something.

 

I've left the anemone in the container alone overnight. It had inflated pretty well and was moving around quite a bit just before lights out last night, and I was hopeful. This morning, lights go on, and the thing has turned itself upside down (onto its tentacles). Which is interesting, because it did the same thing yesterday, the first time I left it alone for several hours in the main tank.

 

Is there a disease that causes nems to have trouble orienting themselves? What should I do? Laying tentacles-down on rock can't be good, can it?

[Clown79]

I would turn off the flow in your tank, flip the nem over.

 

They like to be wedged in between rocks so try to place it in a way where its foot can be wedged in between the rubble.

 

Leave the flow off for an hour to give it time to attach.

 

Is it in high light area or low light area? 

[Chris's Fishes]

Thanks! But, the situation has evolved.

 

The Nem crawled out of the container, and ended up on the sandbed. I turned off the pumps, and it flipped itself over and has been crawling all over the sandbed ever since. I'm just letting it do it's thing, while I move frags and other perils out of it's way. I'll update whenever it decides to settle down - it's come across several rocks, stopped moving, and then decided it didn't like that spot... I guess that's what's going on anyway. 

 

As far as lighting, it's got a variety of options. The right side of the tank is a bit more brightly lit than the left side, and there are different elevations on the rocks that are pretty accessible. 

[specore]

Did you get a response to your email?

[HarryPotter]

I once received a few Nyos test kits I didn't order; apparently there was just a mistake. I offered to send them back, but they said just keep em. 

[Chris's Fishes]

I did! I forgot to update here - oops!

 

The vendor had printed out all of their shipping labels the day before christmas eve. Somehow, my label ended up on the wrong box, and it shipped on Christmas Eve, sat in a warehouse on Christmas Day, and got to me yesterday. They apologized, told me to keep or donate what I received, and gave me $50 off my next purchase. They handled it well, IMO.

 

Also, the anemone has improved a LOT since this morning. He's still not settled anywhere, but he is noticeably more sticky (he's picking up way more sand on his foot), and I saw him curl up around a piece of mysis that fell on his disc while I was feeding the fish. I think he's gonna make it!

[Joevember]

7 minutes ago, PoorBigBlue said:

I did! I forgot to update here - oops!

 

The vendor had printed out all of their shipping labels the day before christmas eve. Somehow, my label ended up on the wrong box, and it shipped on Christmas Eve, sat in a warehouse on Christmas Day, and got to me yesterday. They apologized, told me to keep or donate what I received, and gave me $50 off my next purchase. They handled it well, IMO.

Wow, glad to hear everything worked out for you. 👍🏻

Try to keep it all alive 😂

[Keeper of my nieces Ocean]

I just have orders NOT come when they are supposed to.