Is Aqua SD Safe?

[Maize & Blue]

I bought corals during this recent sale from Aqua SD. Like a previous post said the Frags were so small. I did receive a really nice plate Coral and an Acan but the Goni is so small, It’ll never fit my tank. It’ll just be stuck somewhere out of the way, and as far as the Zoanthid I bought I paid $40 for something that’s on sale today for $15 and has to be the smallest Zoanthid I’ve ever seen. Definitely not like the photo! Totally disappointed won’t buy from them ever again. They did send me a freebie, but I have no idea what it is. It’s cut to pieces and hacked to heck.

 

[GoReefin]

Will is a solid dude. I remember when he first started the shop out of a garage. Those were the days of great corals for great prices. Sadly they've not been doing well. I've had multiple pests from their corals including flat worms, bryopsis, bubble algae, and aptasias.

My last order was pretty terrible. They sold st. Thomas mushroom free floating. Was a nightmare to try and attach to substrate. Ended up floating off never to be seen again. If you're local it's not a bad place to shop but I'd dip and scrub any corals that you purchase before placing in the tank.

Just my 0.02

 

[VintageReefer]

I’d recommend vivid aquariums also. The corals I got were nice sizes, and colors matched the photos.

Made several orders and was happy. One time a high end hammer came completely stressed and dropped many tips in the bag. I wasn’t sure if it would survive or not. They gave me a full refund on the hammer, apologized, no questions asked, no fighting. Just good customer service. The hammer did recover and it’s 4 heads today.

 

[dnprall]

I second @Queen City Corals. They are my LFS and always have good deals and the $14.99 frags are hard to beat. The owners are good people as well.

QCC is great!

 

[Trickman2]

***BEWARE NEW OWNERS....TIME WILL TELL!"
SD LOCAL here and yes, they use to be pretty good for small frags. Lately not so much...Will the owner just recently sold it to a few of the employees from what I heard. We will see where that goes. Last couple times they have gone downhill, and they don't have their acts together and screwed me over by giving me a completely dead frags and not even some of the items I ordered off Ebay. They then decided to double down when I contacted them to state this is the second time you messed up my order and I let it slide the first time...the response was this.

"While we do have an “all sales final” policy for in-store pickups and a 2-hour DOA window for shipped orders, that doesn’t mean we ignore loyal customers when something goes wrong repeatedly. It seems like you have been patient with us, and your loyalty certainly means a lot to us."

They issued a 25-dollar credit as if that makes up for everything.

Found it insulting to act like it is my fault they can't pick out the corals I bought off of ebay. Then act like you are doing me a favor. It's like I was in your store, and you went to find them in your huge coral farm. I guess I need to hold their hands to make sure they pick out the correct ones for now on. I got home and 2 out of the 8 looked like this (dead). I was also missing corals, and another seemed to be not like the picture I bid on. So my answer is don't buy anything expensive off them. Try Tidal Gardens maybe.

Update Aquasd has reached out and offered to take care of this issue. Mistakes happen but as long as support is given and they try to make things right I will recommend them. New owners will get the thumbs up from me.

 

[bradreef]

I think every shop is good at some things and not at others. I used to work near ASD and have ordered from them recently. They have prime pick in LA and can get some stuff others can't. They do chop up stuff, let it heal, and then sell it. I have a few cheap acro frags that came brown and are showing potential now. Frags are likely not going to be huge. Colors might not be as good as the photos. But, you need to go in knowing that.

See below

 

[AquaSD]