Butterflies order review

[ninjamyst]

I placed an order about two weeks ago during their father's day sale for:

- 2 pyramid butterfly
- 1 copperband butterfly
- 1 red mandarin goby

These are all relatively expensive and expert level fish hence why I decided to get them from Dr. Reef.

I will document the process as I personally find reviews from real people very helpful. I have purchased livestock from other online vendors and also live in Orlando so I have my pick of some of the biggest and most well known local LFS but so far have been disappointed with their fish quality.

The ordering process is straight forward and I find their website easy to navigate. I was expecting to wait a month for them to acquire and quarantine the fish I ordered but within two weeks I got the email that my order is ready to ship. They responded quickly to my inquiry about how long the fish been quarantined for.

 

[ninjamyst]

Arrival Day
I chose UPS hub pickup and I would recommend it to everyone. Usually my UPS livestock shipments don't get to my house till late in the afternoon. This time my order arrived at the UPS hub at 9:40am. However I did not get a notification email from UPS. I just happened to be checking the tracking every 30 mins and saw it arrived. I was at the store by 10am and the pick up process was very easy. The employees were inquisitive about the box that says live tropical fish. I did not charged extra by them for hub pick up.

Packaging is superb although I was surprised no ice packs despite shipping to Florida in the summer. But they must know what they are doing since the water temperature was room temperature and not hot or cold. Each bag has plenty of water making the box a good 20-30lbs. The UPS employee was surprised how heavy the box was. All the fish were swimming and in great shape.

Color and size of the fish are amazing. The red mandarin is the standout. Perfect fins and a nice fat belly.

15 mins float in my sump, empty into a bucket, and scooped into the display. Lights were out (thank you hub morning pick up) and they settled in nicely.

Will update tomorrow.

 

[ninjamyst]

Day 2
All 4 fish alive and seems to be doing well. My tangs been showing some aggression to the butterflies but nothing too concerning.

The copperband ate a mysis for lunch. Very happy about that. Two pyramid butterflies not eating yet but one is showing interest. Red mandarin....is somewhere....saw it this morning for a brief moment. I added pods last night.

 

[Dr. Reef Verified Sponsor]

Hi
Thank you for your in depth review and feedaback.
Glad all fish are doing well, They shoudl start eating within a day or so. Soometimes shipping stress can cause them to stop eating but normally will recover over a few days.
If they dont eat or thing go south, let us know we will take care of you.

Ice Pack or heat pack: (Only for knowledge, How this work)

Regarding ice pack, We pack early in the morning here in Tulsa OK. They stay at ups warehouse from 3-4pm to 9-10pm here in Tulsa, Then they fly out to Kentucky. They stay there in ups sorting facility till 5-6am and then fly out to respective States. They reach their destination States about 7-8am, They they get trucked and out for delivery by 10am to 2pm depending how far your address is from ups hub.

So for the first 16hrs or so they are in midwest. Temps here are hovering around mid 80s in day time and lower 70s or even upper 60s at night.
Each cold pack has ability to drop the temp inside the box by 20-25F. If we use a cold pack with night as cool as 70F the temp inside the box will drop to 50F likely killing the fish.
We only use cold pack when nights are going to be above 80F on average.
They are staying in midwest for 80% of the time thus we have to monitor that temp for most part. Once they reach the respective State its just a matter of 2-4 hrs for delivery.

Styrofoam box alone can keep temp inside the box favorable for 14-16 hrs before it starts to climp if left in hot climate.
We have done extensive study on this and thus we are confident of our shipping protocol.

In this chart as you can see, Ambient temp swings from 90F (daytime) to 68F (night time) then back up.
If we do not put anything and let styrofoam do its job (in pink) you can see temp remains in ideal range all the way till 36-40 hrs, never going out of favorable range.

With 1 cold pack it also remains favorable but starts to dip under 70F thus can be an issue if it dips any further.
With 2 cold packs it definitely dips under 67F and can be an issue for some fish.

Hope that helps.

Please keep an eye on the pyramids and let us know if they dont start eating by monday.
Happy 4th Happy reefing

 

[ninjamyst]

Thank you so much for the analysis on shipping! You guys are the best.

 

[Dr. Reef Verified Sponsor]

Thank you so much for the analysis on shipping! You guys are the best.

Do let us know how they do by Monday, I hope they start eating soon.

 

[karsa]

How are your fish doing? I plan on the same order at some point.

 

[ninjamyst]

Oops, forgot to update this thread.

- Mandarin goby died on the 4th day. Reason unknown. It was fat when it arrived but sluggish and didn't move around much. My previous goby would cruise all over the tank all day but this one not as active. Dr. Reef offered me a 50% discount towards the next one.

- Pyramid butterflies developed Lymphocystis which Dr. Reef said is common for butterflies after copper treatment and stress. It was bad for a few days and improved over the weeks. They both eat like a pig and I increased feeding. They both are fine now. Afaik, it's like us catching a cold. Just have to fight it with good diet and water quality. They eat anything and everything you put into the tank.

- Copperband is doing good. Eats only Hikari mysis and nothing else for now. I feed all kinds of frozen and flakes and pellets. Eager for food enough to stand on its own against the tangs and pyramid butterflies.

Overall, I am still very happy with my order and already planning what to order next (bunch of anthias and maybe another pyramid butterfly). Communication with Dr. Reef staff has been phenomenal and I feel like they have my back if things do go wrong.

 

[ninjamyst]

This is a sad update. All the butterflies now have ich and the copperband passed away this morning. I haven't added new fish to this tank for over 6 months although some of my fish before came from WWC and LRO so it is possible ich has always been in the tank. I have over 20 fish in this tank including 3 tangs. Sigh

 

[Louis Z]

Sorry to hear . I still qt even when they say they have been . It sort of defeats the purpose but I try to be as vigilant as best I can . Yes ich could have been in the system and these fish may have been more susceptible to it because of the shipping . If you had qt then you would have seen it pop up in the QT tank and know it wasn’t on your end .

 

[JumboShrimp]

Very sorry to hear of your losses.

 

[Dr. Reef Verified Sponsor]

I am really sorry to hear the fish have ich. We went back and checked, we sold to 35 customers in the same batch of butterflies and uptil now 22 of them have replied back with no issues.
We are passionate about our work and almost guarantee it (without really putting in in words for obvious reasons). So I can offer you any help needed, any medications needed to help cure the fish and once cured, I am happy to replace any fish lost, all of at no cost to you. Please send pics to [email protected] along with order# and we will take care of our customers.

 

[ninjamyst]

I am really sorry to hear the fish have ich. We went back and checked, we sold to 35 customers in the same batch of butterflies and uptil now 22 of them have replied back with no issues.
We are passionate about our work and almost guarantee it (without really putting in in words for obvious reasons). So I can offer you any help needed, any medications needed to help cure the fish and once cured, I am happy to replace any fish lost, all of at no cost to you. Please send pics to [email protected] along with order# and we will take care of our customers.

Thanks, not much I can do now besides feed and ensure good water quality. I can't get all the fish out nor do I have the setup to QT 20+ fish in copper. I haven't had an ich outbreak before though even with all the tangs. It's disheartening because the pyramid butterflies recovered from the lymphocytosis virus and continued to eat like pigs. I don't know what could have triggered the ich outbreak. Maybe it's because I did a big water change last week and moved some rocks around? My royal gramma looks to be in bad shape today and damsels are flashing against rocks.

I seriously don't want to put this on you as I can't guarantee my tank didn't have ich to begin with. I know it's difficult to run a business like yours given you have no idea what everyone tanks are like. I still believe that buying quarantine when possible increases the survival chance of livestock.

Thanks for responding and I am crossing my fingers all the fish can recover on their own