Ordering Corals Online

[CatoeSc]

Anybody ever order corals online? Was thinking about ordering some from LiveAquaria. Anybody have any experience with them? Looking at getting some zoas and/or pipe organ coral.

 

[Phranque]

Anybody ever order corals online?

Nope.... I refuse to pay outrageous overnight shipping charges. My favorite place for corals is local frag swaps. From the looks of it, you've got quite a nice reef club in your area that does two frag swaps a year, plus I'm willing to bet there are more than that if you do some research.

DFW Marine Aquarium Society

 

[MarinaClown]

Only corals I ever lost were the ones purchase online. I recommend buying from LFS or hobbyists. I will never ever buy one online personally.

 

[furrymurray]

I have ordered from liveaquaria lots of times. Great place! They even refunded my money on a fish that didnt survive. My LFS doesnt even do that . And their prices are better than my LFS even adding in the overnite price.

 

[Mebbid]

In bigger cities with a big reefing community it's easier to avoid buying online. But if you're like me and live in a veritable desert for saltwater aquaria then it's one of your only options. My lfs has a tiny selection of corals so unless I want to drive 2 hours to get to a bigger store online is it.

I did buy one order of soft corals from reef2go and had horrible luck with them. I do however attribute some of that loss to me being new to the hobby though.

 

[MarinaClown]

In bigger cities with a big reefing community it's easier to avoid buying online.

Very true. Los Angeles is saturated with fish stores and reef aquarium hobbyists. Hence no need to buy online here.

 

[Terrance]

I would only buy from liveaquaria if its a rarer coral that I can never find or get at my LFS. Luckily I have a very good reefing LFS within 5 miles from my home.

Pics are sometimes deceptive online and coral color will be dependent on lighting (their lighting vs your own lighting)

 

[CatoeSc]

I haven't found a place here locally that sells a wide variety of zoas. I was thinking of buying from LiveAquaria. A previous poster noted that even with the shipping, they tend to be cheaper than at the LFS, and that seems about right. It is an expensive gamble.

 

[jeffaquarius]

I ordered online 5 zoas from Areef2go with free shipping. It came with a big box nicely packed. When I opened it, to my surprise it contains also other stuff I did not order. There were other soft corals, fish and inverts. So I thought they must be give aways. So I carefully acclimate and distribute them to my 2 tanks. After reading the packing slip, I realized there were 2 other names with the list of the other stuff under them. So I asked myself, what shall I do now? This must be a mistake from the packing personnel or may be just a gimmick to please the buyers since the cost of 5 tiny zoas is $120 with 5 polyps seems outrageous. I wonder if this also happens to anyone else..

 

[Mebbid]

I ordered online 5 zoas from Areef2go with free shipping. It came with a big box nicely packed. When I opened it, to my surprise it contains also other stuff I did not order. There were other soft corals, fish and inverts. So I thought they must be give aways. So I carefully acclimate and distribute them to my 2 tanks. After reading the packing slip, I realized there were 2 other names with the list of the other stuff under them. So I asked myself, what shall I do now? This must be a mistake from the packing personnel or may be just a gimmick to please the buyers since the cost of 5 tiny zoas is $120 with 5 polyps seems outrageous. I wonder if this also happens to anyone else..

They weren't to e aways and were most likely a mistake. Those expensive zoas are designer zoas and are generally fairly slow growing. It's the price you pay for getting fancy corals.