Ordering Livestock Online

[Langemc]

What is everyone's experience with ordering online, is it better to just go through the LFS's or is it okay to order online

it seems to be cheaper for alot of fish and the there seems to be a wider variety of fish online, also most websites guarantee their livestock for 14 days

my LFS guarantee's for one day and thats it, i like and trust the LFS but just want to know if i should ever consider ordering online

i was looking at vividaquariums.com, anyone try that site before?

[ellisz]

I or someone I know have used:

www.saltwaterfish.com
www.etropicals.com
www.liveaquaria.com
www.premiumaquatics.com

Depending on what you want, it can be cheaper sometimes. Quality is normally good but if you have some nice LFS, it might be better to stay local.

It all depends. A lot of things just can't be found locally and there is nothing better than to get a box of live stuff in the mail

[lando]

I have had good luck with liveaquaria.com. In general, on-line prices are pretty good when compaired to the LFS. Make sure you read about the company's shipping polocies. Some charge extra "box" fees or "packing" fees. Others to not. Go with the longest guarantee you can find. 14days is good. When you figure in the shipping costs with the price of the fish, if you just order one fish you do not save much money. If you order two are three you will notice a difference. Cheap inverts as well. I have ordered corals online as well, but still prefer to hand-pick those myself from the LFS.

[malkore]

Figure that the minimum shipping cost is $20, as they must use Next-day Air shipping, usually FedEx or DHL, and that ain't cheap. YOu have to make sure you order enough livestock to off-set the shipping cost so that you still come out saving money vs. the LFS prices.

live aquaria is a min of $25 to ship any order amount. I think over $300 its free.

[Bearfan]

Live Aquaria was $175, Saltwaterfish is $80 with a $10 box charge.

[zenn]

don't mean to bring life into an old topic but how do people qt fish they've ordered online if they've bought 4 or more fish? I only have a 10g qt and am looking at buying all the fish on my list at once from an online store(which includes 5 specimens and maybe some inverts). Is it a bad idea to order and qt that many fish into a 10g tank for 4 weeks?

TIA

I think its a bad idea to be trying to put that many in there at once in the first place.

[zenn]

well, what i was thinking was staggering the fishes entry into the display tank. Say, introducing a fish every week from the qt to the display tank...that way allowing the bioload of the display tank to adjust for each tank.

Would be nice to figure out a way to buy all 6 fish at once and qt them properly.