"Healthy fish", my foot

[Tired]

Ordered a clown goby from Diver's Den. Got a clown goby with ich and a sunken stomach, and their advice was to not actually treat the ich. The main cause of ich isn't shipping stress, it's having ich pathogens present.
Boy am I glad I didn't put this lil guy straight in my tank. I can only imagine how much more upset I'd be if I'd ordered some big-ticket angelfish and had it infect my entire system.
Either they need to up their QT game, or they need to stop advertising healthy fish.

 

[Buckster]

That's unfortunate. I received a tang from a different supplier that had 30-40% of the water the fish was in which leaked into the packaging. The tang was very stressed and never ate lasting for about 2 weeks. I took photos of the bag and packaging but the supplier did not replace the tang as they said that they only had DOA. I have not bought from them again!

 

[Sink_or_Swim]

This is why I hesitate to order from LA... I haven't heard the most positive reviews. On the other hand, if you don't mind waiting a while, I HIGHLY recommend Dr. Reef. I just received my first fish from him (a quarantined Tomini Tang) on Friday, and it arrived in perfect condition, on time. Appears completely clear of ich or anything else, has been eating since an hour after being added to the tank, and is not thin at all (although shy, but, he's acclimating to his new home). Just a very healthy, active fish (worth the wait).

 

[Tired]

Just had a look at Dr Reef's website. Looks really good. They even have clown gobies! $55 shipping, though. Oof. I'd mind less if I was planning on ordering more than just the one fish.

I'll probably have to go with them next time I want to pick some fish up. Might be in the market soon if this little guy dies. Hopefully I can treat him. I'm using the tank transfer method, since it doesn't involve medications that might reduce his appetite. He's still not eating. I've tried mysis, tiny pellets, both of those again but soaked in garlic, live microworms, and live amphipods. The amphipods are living under the heater he's hiding behind, and are not in fact being eaten. I'm trying BBS as soon as they hatch.

 

[Sink_or_Swim]

Just had a look at Dr Reef's website. Looks really good. They even have clown gobies! $55 shipping, though. Oof. I'd mind less if I was planning on ordering more than just the one fish.

I'll probably have to go with them next time I want to pick some fish up. Might be in the market soon if this little guy dies. Hopefully I can treat him. I'm using the tank transfer method, since it doesn't involve medications that might reduce his appetite. He's still not eating. I've tried mysis, tiny pellets, both of those again but soaked in garlic, live microworms, and live amphipods. The amphipods are living under the heater he's hiding behind, and are not in fact being eaten. I'm trying BBS as soon as they hatch.

Yeah, the shipping is pricey, so if I order more fish from him in the future I will probably wait until I'm looking for more than one (kind of the same way I shop for coral, lol). Or, he also carries quarantined inverts to add on. If you're confident with your quarantine skills (I'm not, lol), you can order fish just "conditioned" instead of fully quarantined, for a lower price (I'm sure you saw that on his website). I hope your goby makes it! I wish I had some feeding advice - all my fish are pigs, including the new tang. I feed frozen Rod's Food original, and Ocean Nutrition prime reef frozen... seems like they all go crazy for both. You could try one of those if you can get your hands on some, though hopefully the baby brine will entice him. Maybe he will also get more of an appetite if he starts feeling better.

 

[LiveAquaria]

Ordered a clown goby from Diver's Den. Got a clown goby with ich and a sunken stomach, and their advice was to not actually treat the ich. The main cause of ich isn't shipping stress, it's having ich pathogens present.
Boy am I glad I didn't put this lil guy straight in my tank. I can only imagine how much more upset I'd be if I'd ordered some big-ticket angelfish and had it infect my entire system.
Either they need to up their QT game, or they need to stop advertising healthy fish.

Dear Valued Customer,

Again, we apologize that your Clown Goby has ick. We did offer suggestions on raising the tank temperature as this will speed up the life cycle of the of the ick and also using a garlic supplement (Garlic Xtream) will help boost the fish's immune system helping to fight off the ick.

The health and well being of the specimens we ship are our main concern. All fish do go through an extensive quarantine period and the fish does undergo a final health inspection prior to shipping. A fish may not show any signs of ick in our holding facility but due to the stress of shipping the ick can progress very rapidly and be seen by the time your receive the shipment or appear very shortly after arrival. For this reason we do recommend quarantining new arrivals, no matter where they come from, for two to four weeks before adding them to your main display tank.

Please feel free to reach out to our Customer Service Department again if you would like to discuss this further.

Carole
Live Aquaria
Customer Service Supervisor

 

[Tired]

Speeding up the life cycle of the ich is bad in this case, because that's just going to make it worse on a very stressed fish. And, again: the goby arrived not eating. I can't feed garlic to an animal that isn't eating.

If you're going to sell fish that aren't guaranteed to be disease-free, you really need to take out the "healthiest fish anywhere" line and add in "quarantine anyway, these fish might still be sick". Two weeks isn't "extensive quarantine", anyway.

You also need to be recommending actual treatments to people, because if I didn't know better than to do that, I could have killed this fish. Plenty of actual treatments exist, all involving removing the fish to a separate tank and letting the infected tank go fallow. If you need information on how to properly treat ich and actually remove it from a tank, Humblefish has some good guides online. You'd probably be better off just sending people a link to that than telling them to use heat and garlic, and not even suggesting a separate treatment tank.

 

[Tired]

I've gotten the goby eating live BBS, if anyone was wondering how he's doing. He'll only eat if the shrimp are directly in front of his face, but I've been using a weak flashlight to lure them in his direction, and he now has a belly full of orange. I'm hoping that means he'll live, but he still has to get through the rest of the TTM. At least I've found a piece of pipe he likes to hide inside, that I have multiples of. So I can consistently give him hiding spots while I transfer him around.

Guess I'll be hatching BBS for a few weeks!

 

[Karen00]

I've gotten the goby eating live BBS, if anyone was wondering how he's doing. He'll only eat if the shrimp are directly in front of his face, but I've been using a weak flashlight to lure them in his direction, and he now has a belly full of orange. I'm hoping that means he'll live, but he still has to get through the rest of the TTM. At least I've found a piece of pipe he likes to hide inside, that I have multiples of. So I can consistently give him hiding spots while I transfer him around.

Guess I'll be hatching BBS for a few weeks!

Please keep us updated. There's a special place in my heart for gobies and blennies so I always shed a tear when I read threads like this. If you got him eating that's great. Most stories don't end well when the stomach looks like that which seems to suggest this has been festering for awhile. I don't know of any fish that would be healthy one day then two or three days later look like this so I think he must've been in distress for awhile. It's distressing to see this! :-(

 

[polyppal]

Order fish from LA?

 

[Spare time]

It seems like things have gone down hill with live aquaria. I had great luck with their divers den fish not appearing to have any diseases, but I have not heard great things recently about them in general.

 

[Sink_or_Swim]

I've gotten the goby eating live BBS, if anyone was wondering how he's doing. He'll only eat if the shrimp are directly in front of his face, but I've been using a weak flashlight to lure them in his direction, and he now has a belly full of orange. I'm hoping that means he'll live, but he still has to get through the rest of the TTM. At least I've found a piece of pipe he likes to hide inside, that I have multiples of. So I can consistently give him hiding spots while I transfer him around.

Guess I'll be hatching BBS for a few weeks!

Thank you for updating us! I was hoping you'd find something he'd eat. Good job with the baby brine - I will keep that in mind for any picky fish. I really hope your goby pulls through. It upsets me that LA keeps insisting the fish broke out with ich (which they keep spelling incorrectly) simply due to shipping stress. That fish could not have been in good health when they bagged it.

 

[bnord]

That's unfortunate. I received a tang from a different supplier that had 30-40% of the water the fish was in which leaked into the packaging. The tang was very stressed and never ate lasting for about 2 weeks. I took photos of the bag and packaging but the supplier did not replace the tang as they said that they only had DOA. I have not bought from them again!

sorry for that bad experience - I have had similar in the past for coral.

seems we always praise quality suppliers when they meet/exceed our recommendations - which is great. Seems like we call the ones that disappoint "another supplier". Feel we should be be honest and unbiased when suppliers fail to live up to industry standards and state who they are.

It should help us R2R members, and for the supplier to improve their standards

 

[Tired]

I'm going to keep the BBS hatching supplies, and it's going to be my immediate go-to for any fish that doesn't eat. Well- immediate-ish, since they have to hatch.

His belly was notably concave when I got him. It doesn't really show in the above picture, but he didn't look like he'd eaten in awhile. He was shipped overnight, and I can't imagine that was just an overnight of not eating. When I called LA and asked what they were feeding the clown gobies, I was told that the chart says gobies get mysis shrimp, so maybe he wasn't getting small enough pieces? Or maybe he wasn't eating after all.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617887981620953109/980169182039666688/IMG_8776.jpg?width=472&height=630

Hopefully this works. I can't get any of the buttons above the post editor (the ones for italics, links, photos, or whatnot) to work for me, so I just have to put links.
Here he is in his little hiding spot. I have a few of these things, so I can put a new one in each tank he gets transferred to, and hopefully that should reduce his stress. Having an identical hiding spot ought to be good. You can see he's definitely been eating! From the side, he's full of orange.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/617887981620953109/980169248372563978/IMG_8777.jpg?width=472&height=630

And here's what I'm doing to keep him fed. I turn off the pump for a few hours, and put a flashlight right next to him. It's not in his eyes because he's inside a thing, but it lures the shrimp all the way across the tank. He only eats shrimp that are right by him, so I'm trying to keep the shrimp in easy range.

He is getting more inclined to actually move to get the shrimp, at least, instead of only grabbing ones that practically bump into his nose. He grabbed one right after I took that first photo, and moved a little to the side to do it. He's also more reactive to disturbance, which is a good sign. I'm not sure how much of his disinclination to move to grab shrimp is because he's still not feeling good, versus him being spooked by the bare tank and wanting to be inside his nice crevice. I'm excited to put him into my tank once he's healthy- so many crevices!

I'm going to have SO MANY left-over baby brine shrimp, since I have to remove them once they've gotten past the nutritious stage. Gonna just dump them into a 10gal tank I have spare and raise them into adults, I think. Brine shrimp are neat.
(Plus, if I dump them all into a separate tank for 2 months, there's no way any sort of ich is going to remain in with them. Maybe I can feed the adults as treats once they're disease-free.)

Oh, and, in another "issues with livestock" thing: I ordered some rock flower anemones from SaltCritters, and one of them came in with its bag mostly empty, despite being double-bagged. But! Because all the bags were inside another bag, it still had a little water inside, so it was perfectly fine. Just flat.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/617887981620953109/979063707667689522/IMG_8739.jpg

I much prefer the harmless types of thing-gone-wrong. Anemones tolerate low water much, much better. Heck, it probably would have been fine with no water in there for a few hours.

 

[131696]

Dear Valued Customer,

Again, we apologize that your Clown Goby has ick. We did offer suggestions on raising the tank temperature as this will speed up the life cycle of the of the ick and also using a garlic supplement (Garlic Xtream) will help boost the fish's immune system helping to fight off the ick.

The health and well being of the specimens we ship are our main concern. All fish do go through an extensive quarantine period and the fish does undergo a final health inspection prior to shipping. A fish may not show any signs of ick in our holding facility but due to the stress of shipping the ick can progress very rapidly and be seen by the time your receive the shipment or appear very shortly after arrival. For this reason we do recommend quarantining new arrivals, no matter where they come from, for two to four weeks before adding them to your main display tank.

Please feel free to reach out to our Customer Service Department again if you would like to discuss this further.

Carole
Live Aquaria
Customer Service Supervisor

What if he had only 1 tank and that tank was extablished? Don't sell junk fish anymore or sick fish you know better so stop it. Give him his money back just for the stress you putting on him. It's your fault take responsibility for it.

 

[131696]

What if he had only 1 tank and that tank was extablished? Don't sell junk fish anymore or sick fish you know better so stop it. Give him his money back just for the stress you putting on him. It's your fault take responsibility for it.I buy from a great place shipping stress is just an excuse for not doing quarantining right months at a time ,a few weeks is not enough time,this hobby is take your time no hurry so take your time and get the fish right before shipping. Give him his money back.

 

[Tired]

Unfortunately for me, they only refund if the fish is dead. And they don't actually refund, they give you store credit. Not counting the shipping cost, last I checked.

Besides, it's not about the money. I mean, I'd take it if someone offered it! But if all I cared about was the cash, I wouldn't have spent anything on supplies, let alone bothered trying to do a high-effort treatment.
I'd definitely be even more upset if I'd spent hundreds of dollars on this guy, though. They've got some pricy fish for sale there.

They are right that fish can appear healthy, then be stressed enough to show symptoms by shipping. But fish that may or may not have diseases are not the "healthiest fish anywhere".

 

[131696]

Unfortunately for me, they only refund if the fish is dead. And they don't actually refund, they give you store credit. Not counting the shipping cost, last I checked.

Besides, it's not about the money. I mean, I'd take it if someone offered it! But if all I cared about was the cash, I wouldn't have spent anything on supplies, let alone bothered trying to do a high-effort treatment.
I'd definitely be even more upset if I'd spent hundreds of dollars on this guy, though. They've got some pricy fish for sale there.

They are right that fish can appear healthy, then be stressed enough to show symptoms by shipping. But fish that may or may not have diseases are not the "healthiest fish anywhere".

Yea we need to start making the rules not them stores don't care about you or the animals just care about your money ,if we buy we get 2 weeks warranty if not don't buy from them .some companies give 2 weeks now on fish and coral and fish are good to go from start. You just pay more for better fish and corals.

 

[ReefEco]

I've had some good experiences with LA in the past - including a nice Copperband from Diver's Den, but I feel your pain. I recently ordered some clean up crew from them, and they mis-shipped the wrong snails 3 times. I'm not joking. Had high mortality on other snails on the order as well. I spoke to their customer service team, which I have to admit I've always had really good experiences with, and they replaced or refunded the snails every single time, but I did find out they are having real staffing issues. Lots of staff left, and they are in the midst (or were) of training lots of new staff. All that said, any fish from Diver's Den should not arrive with a sunken stomach, or ich. I severely doubt that ich can manifest in only 24 hours shipping time unless it is already heavily present in the shipping water - meaning it was present in their QT system which is specifically supposed to eradicate it (ie. fish are held in copper). Hopefully they will up their QT game as you suggest, to the standards of places like Dr. Reef or TSM Aquatics. Good luck with the Goby - hatching brine shrimp for her demonstrates your dedication and care - keep it up.

 

[polyppal]

Dear Valued Customer,

Again, we apologize that your Clown Goby has ick. We did offer suggestions on raising the tank temperature as this will speed up the life cycle of the of the ick and also using a garlic supplement (Garlic Xtream) will help boost the fish's immune system helping to fight off the ick.

The health and well being of the specimens we ship are our main concern. All fish do go through an extensive quarantine period and the fish does undergo a final health inspection prior to shipping. A fish may not show any signs of ick in our holding facility but due to the stress of shipping the ick can progress very rapidly and be seen by the time your receive the shipment or appear very shortly after arrival. For this reason we do recommend quarantining new arrivals, no matter where they come from, for two to four weeks before adding them to your main display tank.

Please feel free to reach out to our Customer Service Department again if you would like to discuss this further.

Carole
Live Aquaria
Customer Service Supervisor