Reeftopia

[Hara]

Anyone have any dealings with these folks?

[d9hp]

Can you give me the link? I would like to check them out

[fishfreek]

Originally Posted by d9hp

Can you give me the link? I would like to check them out

Try http://www.reeftopia.com/

[Hara]

I ordered inverts from them today, I will report on how well it went.

[MR294]

I've ordered from them twice and had mixed results. First order I split with a friend, we ordered the 100 golden astreas, a black cap, and some cleaner shrimp. Everything was well packed, the fish was beautiful, and the shrimp were a decent size. I later placed another order for myself, after seeings my friends blackap and deciding that I just had to have one . Got some more astreas, a blackcap, a swissguard, and 3 cleaners. The cleaner shrimp were tiny and one was DOA. The blackcap was in great condition (still have him today), and the swissguard looked OK (no visible signs of injury or sickness etc.) but was dead within 24 hours. I know a couple people who have ordered since then and have been very pleased.

[fishfreek]

Originally Posted by Hara

I ordered inverts from them today, I will report on how well it went.

How did it go? Or have you not gotten them yet?

[Hara]

The fedx truck got her at 4:55 p.m.
The losses in the order, I feel, were not do to reeftopia. The packaging
was wonderful, each little peppermint shrimp was in a double bag to itself.

The micro hermits bag had foul water in it, but I think that was due to them dieing while in transit.

The astrea snails are encrusted with coraline and have macroalgae growing off the top of them! I have never seen the like of it.

All in all, I will order from them again.

[d9hp]

That link did not work, I will try it again. I am looking for 2 TINY cleaners for my 7 minibow so you think if I request it they will do it for me?

[Hara]

http://www.reeftopia.com/completecatalog.htm

[fishfreek]

Seems like you have problems with shippments getting to you. I think you had a problem with some other shippments or am I incorrect?

[Hara]

For some reason, UPS can get to me around noon. Fedx will not. When the company was asked, they said we were rural so it is a 5 pm cut off time. The lady
at Reeftopia suggested I get the shipment at work..like that is going to get the
stuff to the water sooner...duh. She said at least it might be off the truck earlier.
Not that that would help much.

I even offer to pay extra for ups and they dont want to give the option.

[fishfreek]

The reason they dont budge on ups is that UPS does not ship live fish. I have heard stories about UPS returning or shippments that have box's that say LIVE FISH on them.

Getting it off the truck would help in the dead of summer when its 90+ outside and 130+ inside the truck. At cooler water temps the metabiloum of the creatures slows down so they produce less waste and consume less oxygen in a bag vs if the water temp was higher. THus in theory they would live longer in cooler conditons. Now this is to a point and then it becomes to cold.

Personally I dont like to order if the temp is going to be below 50F.

[alrmc4]

see if you can get it delivered express mail by the post office they guarantee next day.

[Hara]

I asked that as well....nothing but fedx

[nugrad2005]

So we ordered 100 snails, 100 blue leg hermit crabs, 2 anemones, a spotted shrimp, and 1 feather duster. I didn't deal directly with them but my roommate said they were very knowledgeable and very nice on the phone. They got the order right out, shipped Fedex.

Well lets just say fedex is a bunch of morons(apologies to anyone that works for fedex, but the people he dealt with were NO help). They aparently put the wrong label, or no label on the package indicating it was live marine life. So naturally they felt they could put the order off for another day. After many calls and many arguments we got the "we'll do our best to get it out tonight," but it didn't show up. It came the next morning and most everything was alive. The anemones looked like they could use some help and one is dead or very close to on its way out. The spotted shrimp was iffy at best(although he's the coolest guy ever, why the anemone doesn't eat him i have no idea?????????). It looks like the hermit crabs and the snails are okay, it was tough to tell at first. Most of them were moving around and such, but a couple just sort of laid there. We'll see if they have moved after work today.

Reeftopia said they would replace anything that was dead and were very apologetic although it wasn't their fault.

Now as for fedex it was very disappointing. It seems like this is a trend with them, not delivering things or having all sorts of trouble. Nothing you do though if Brown doesn't deliver live goods. Its a no-win situation.

Thats all for now.

-Dan

[AngelFish_03]

We (my son and I) ordered from Reeftopia, we split a order of "total Reef Care Special #1" and 2 feather dusters, everything came in great shape and the customer service woman was extremely helpful and friendly. I would definately order from them again.