I have been doing business with LiveAquaria for quite some time. Though being a very picky person wanting things specific way, I have always ordered from the Diver’s Den rather than their general selection. And I have always had good experience with shipping from Diver’s Den. see my tour of the Diver’s Den facility in Rhineland, Wisconsin.
Live Aquaria happened to have a 20% off sale over the weekend so I thought I’d give the general selection a shot and placed and order for some “generic” items that usually don’t surprise me too much. Among them were three disbar anthias, one long nose hawkfish, and a whole bucket of “build your own” clean up crew (see below).
So here is the early verdict- All the clean up crew looks magnificent! came in just as I have expected and are all doing well after drip acclimation and introduction to both my display tank and my frag tank.
The fish- not so lucky. One of the three anthias did not even make it out of the bag, was a DOA (dead on arrival). The other two barely made it into the quarantine tank but did not survive the night. The hawkfish was looking “OK” for the first night but then also perished within a day of arrival. I know for sure it is not that quarantine method or the tank because I have had a mystery wrasse in there and was doing great (eating, swimming around, hiding, doing the usual wrasse thing).
Luckily, LiveAquaria does have the 14 days guarantee– this is part of the reason I am willing, and would continue order from them despite occasional disappointments like this.
But this is a learning lesson- Just from the moment I opened the box I can tell that the facility at California does not bag & box the items as carefully as the Wisconsin facility. And it might have been a bit longer plane ride at a tighter transit schedule to have unknown scenarios that might have stressed the fish out during transit. I think I will continue to order from Diver’s Den, but may avoid ordering fish from the California Live Aquaria facility.