Liveaquaria - going downhill fast or just a coincidence

[attilak]

Not going to rant here on the bad experience I am continuously having with ordering fish from liveaquaria - but have been using them for years but now I am to a point of completely removing them as an option to order from... lost fish, to not updating if fish is shipped, to DOA arrival due to no heat pack! Take a look at the picture of the fish I just received with a heat pack that is not hot any more - the previous order from last week had no heat pack and fish lost.

This is 3 DOA cardinals - temp. at around 55 degrees.

Anyone else having negative experience with them?

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

They've moved down to an absolute last resort for me on sourcing. Between not updating the website and allowing you to purchase a fish they don't have, and not informing you until Delivery date (happened twice back to back) and receiving fish that were Barely healthy enough to survive transport, it's just not worth it any longer to me, personally.

 

[attilak]

thanks... yea. they used to even give 2 weeks of warranty on fish, which has changed now to a week and credit only. What is the best and most reputable online place these days? a buddy of mine turned me onto https://reefbeauties.com/. seems like he had luck so far and reasonable prices too. NYAquatics is hit/miss too.

 

[Tonycass12]

If you put liveaquaria into the search bar on R2R I feel like your thread title would be nearly identical to the first page of search results.

 

[Arego]

Never bought a fish online so I can't relate, I do however hope they step their game back up for others or they are going to get renamed to hopefullyaliveaquaria.com by the industry.

As someone who manages online retail they don't have long at the pace of threads I see everywhere.

 

[flagg37]

thanks... yea. they used to even give 2 weeks of warranty on fish, which has changed now to a week and credit only. What is the best and most reputable online place these days? a buddy of mine turned me onto https://reefbeauties.com/. seems like he had luck so far and reasonable prices too. NYAquatics is hit/miss too.

I bought most of my fish through them back in the day, primarily because of that 14 day warranty. It would cover the 12 TTM qt that I did.

 

[Grumblez]

I had a credit from them about to expire I used for corals didn't want to get fish from them again.

 

[SteveMM62Reef]

You can’t get a accurate reading of water temperature with the IR Thermometers. Yes I have one, and I’m very familiar with it’s limits. I had an idea, I presented to them on having fish set to PetCo, but they didn’t reply back

 

[reefah]

They've moved down to an absolute last resort for me on sourcing. Between not updating the website and allowing you to purchase a fish they don't have, and not informing you until Delivery date (happened twice back to back) and receiving fish that were Barely healthy enough to survive transport, it's just not worth it any longer to me, personally.

This exactly. I recently purchased in stock yellow tang which was not actually in stock. They shipped a yellow tang to me 3 weeks later which was DOA poor little guy :/ then they told me yikes no worries we will send another once we get more which is in a month or so. Two months later i finally got him safely. Never again. I’ll stick to LFS

 

[jdiefenbaugh]

The last divers den fish I bought came covered in flukes. I told them if i wanted a parasite riddled fish, I'd pay half as much and buy from my LFS knowing i had to treat. They offered to explain the treatment process in return for my troubles ‍

 

[FishyFishFish]

You can’t get a accurate reading of water temperature with the IR Thermometers. Yes I have one, and I’m very familiar with it’s limits. I had an idea, I presented to them on having fish set to PetCo, but they didn’t reply back

Why would they send fish to Petco?

 

[SteveMM62Reef]

PetCo Owned LiveAquaria, in the past when they bought Drs Foster and Smith. From what I understand all their Fish come from them.

 

[FishyFishFish]

PetCo Owned LiveAquaria, in the past when they bought Drs Foster and Smith. From what I understand all their Fish come from them.

‘owned’ (past tense) being the important word. Petco sold Liveaquaria 18 months ago. Previous threads have suggested Petco gets their fish from Quality Marine and ORA, but I don’t know that as fact.

 

[adam87]

PetCo Owned LiveAquaria, in the past when they bought Drs Foster and Smith. From what I understand all their Fish come from them.

Petco sold LiveAquaria a few years ago.

 

[Doctorgori]

yeah they’ve been trending down….
most/all fish either come from ORA, Biota or the deep blue sea …. it’s the post catch handling that matters

 

[vtecintegra]

I had four deliveries of dead fish. So if you have a $20 fish that's DOA, you have to pay another $40 for shipping. Now your $20 + $40 + $40 fish is $100. Better off buying local.

 

[Tamberav]

ORA on their website still comes packed appropriately as they come directly from ORA.

Anything else, even DD... order hardy stuff only. Probably not fish... the packing sucks.

 

[jdiefenbaugh]

‘owned’ (past tense) being the important word. Petco sold Liveaquaria 18 months ago. Previous threads have suggested Petco gets their fish from Quality Marine and ORA, but I don’t know that as fact.

Live aquaria gets all its livestock from quality marine. If you order non-DD fish, they come from QMs facility under LAs name.

 

[kingjoe]

Not going to rant here on the bad experience I am continuously having with ordering fish from liveaquaria - but have been using them for years but now I am to a point of completely removing them as an option to order from... lost fish, to not updating if fish is shipped, to DOA arrival due to no heat pack! Take a look at the picture of the fish I just received with a heat pack that is not hot any more - the previous order from last week had no heat pack and fish lost.

This is 3 DOA cardinals - temp. at around 55 degrees.

Anyone else having negative experience with them?

About 12 years ago I thought they were about the best in the business; all the fish and corals I bought from them arrived in great shape and adjusted well to my tanks. (A powder blue that sailed through quarantine with no ecto-parasites!) Last March, after getting back into the hobby, I ordered some fish and corals from them- a few things to get my tanks going, nothing delicate or particularly demanding. The order arrived, and it was s---. I began reading reviews from other buyers and realized that I had made the error of assuming that LA was still good. It was an incredibly disappointing way to step back into a hobby I had been away from for a number of years. I let them know I would not ever buy from them again.

 

[ecrumpler]

My last order with them was really bad. 10 Divers Den corals tossed into a giant insulated bag and an oversized box. Packed so that they could roll around. The heat pack was put on the OUTSIDE of the insulated bag and the corals were ice cold. Half were DOA. I'm done. Using my credits to buy their drop shipped inverts.